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ENGLAND 


IN   UNIFORM  STYLE. 


RUSSIA.  By  D.  Mackenzie  Wallace,  M.A., 
Member  of  the  Imperial  Russian  Geographical  So- 
ciety.    With  two  colored  maps,  8vo. 


I  URK.EY.  By  James  Baker,  M.A,  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Auxiliary  Forces,  formerly  Eighth  Hussars. 
With  two  colored  maps,  8vo. 


EGYPT.     By  J.  C.  McCOAN.     With  map,  8vo. 


ENGLAND:     Its   People,  Polity,    and    Pursuits. 
By  T.  H.  S.  Escott.     Svo. 

HENRY   HOLT   &   CO., 
PUBLISHERS, 

NEW  YORK. 


tyfay 


ENGLAND 


HER   PEOPLE,   POLITY,   AND   PURSUITS 


BY 


T.   H.   S.   ESCOTT 


'J 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

1880. 


'P 


h 


6 


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AUTHOR'S  EDITION. 


PEEFAOE. 


The  object  of  this  book  has  been  so  fully  explained  in  the 
first  chapter,  that  it  scarcely  seems  necessary  to  inflict  a 
Preface  upon  the  reader.  Yet  there  are  some  things  which 
could  not  well  be  stated  in  the  body  of  the  work,  and  which 
it  may  not  be  amiss  here  briefly  to  set  forth. 

My  purpose  has  been  to  present  the  public  in  this  volume 
with  as  complete  and  faithful  a  picture  of  contemporary  En- 
gland as  the  limits  of  space  and  opportunity  would  allow. 
That  I  might  do  this  the  better,  I  have  devoted  much  time 
to  the  collection  of  materials,  I  have  made  several  visits  to 
different  parts  of  the  country,  I  have  conversed  with,  and 
lived  amongst,  many  varieties  of  people.  The  facts  stated 
are  those  of  observation  and  experience,  and  whatever  there 
is  of  description  in  this  volume  may,  at  least,  claim  to  be  a 
transcript  of  what  I  have  seen. 

While  I  have  endeavored  to  be  as  accurate  as  possible  in 
my  narrative  of  the  general  condition  of  England,  and  in  my 
account  of  the  influences  which  are  at  work  among  us,  and 
which  may,  perhaps,  determine  our  future,  so  have  I  studi- 
ously avoided  all  historical  retrospect  when  it  did  not  appear 
absolutely  necessary  for  a  right  understanding  of  our  present 
state.  Thus,  too,  while  criticism  and  the  expression  of  per- 
sonal opinion  have  seemed  occasionally  unavoidable,  I  have 
aimed  at  being  scrupulously  sparing  of  both. 

Of  the  plan  of  the  work,  I  will  only  here  say  these  words. 
Those  who  honor  me  with  a  continuous  perusal  of  its  pages 


» 


vi  PREFACE. 

will,  I  venture  to  think,  perceive  that  its  chapters  are  closely 
and  logically  connected  by  a  pervading  identity  of  purpose. 
There  are  certain  central  ideas  in  the  book  round  which  I 
have  endeavored  to  group  my  facts  and  descriptions,  and 
which  I  have  explained  at  sufficient  length  in  the  intro- 
ductory chapter.  Whether  the  point  of  view  there  taken  be 
right  or  wrong,  it  is  at  least  that  which  has  been  taken  con- 
sistently, and  I  hope  it  will  have  the  effect  of  imparting  to 
the  entire  work  a  certain  air  of  unity  and  cohesion.  Again, 
though  I  cannot  hope  to  have  escaped  sins  of  omission,  I 
would  venture  respectfully  to  be  allowed  to  remind  those  who 
may  not  find  all  their  conceptions  realized  that  this  book  is 
not  an  encyclopedia,  but  a  survey ;  and  I  would  further  crave 
permission  to  add  that  in  some  cases  I  have  found  it  neces- 
sary to  treat  of  particular  subjects  elsewhere  than  in  those 
chapters  in  which,  from  their  titles,  such  subjects  might  be 
expected  to  have  a  place.  Thus,  though  there  is  no  chapter 
exclusively  devoted  to  the  literature  of  the  day  in  all  its 
branches,  I  trust  that  a  fair  general  view  of  that  literature 
and  its  tendencies  will  be  found  in  the  three  chapters,  Ee- 
ligious  England,  Popular  Culture  and  Literature,  English 
Philosophy  and  Thought,  which  should  be  read  together,  and 
to  which  I  might  perhaps  add  that  on  Popular  Amusements. 
While  the  information  contained  in  this  volume  is  for  the 
most  part  the  result  of  study  of  the  facts  at  first  hand,  1  have 
also  profited  greatly  from  the  perusal  of  official  documents 
and  other  treatises.  Whenever  a  statement  is  made  from 
Blue  Books  of  a  kind  likely  to  challenge  criticism  or  provoke 
controversy,  I  think  I  shall  be  found  to  have  pointed  out 
where  it  may  be  found  in  the  original.  In  other  cases  I 
have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  load  my  page  with  those 
references,  whose  frequent  repetition  chiefly  serves  to  distract 
the  reader's  attention.  The  parliamentary  papers  which  I 
have  found  of  most  assistance  are  the  reports  of  the  Com- 
mission on  the  employment  of  children,  young  persons,  and 


PREFACE.  vii 

women  in  agriculture  of  1867,  of  the  Factory  and  Workshops 
Acts  Commission  of  1876,  of  the  report  of  the  Commissioners 
appointed  to  inquire  into  the  Truck  system  of  1871,  as  well 
as  the  periodical  reports  of  the  Educational  Department,  of 
the  Inspectors  of  Factories,  and  of  the  Poor  Law  Board,  and 
the  journals  of  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society.  As  regards  the  > 
other  works  to  which  I  am  mainly  indebted,  they  will  be 
found,  I  think,  in  almost  every  instance  named  in  the  text 
or  in  a  footnote.  I  would  here  add  that  I  have  derived  many 
valuable  facts  and  suggestions  from  the  works  of  Mr.  Clifford 
and  Mr.  T.  E.  Kebbel  on  the  agricultural  laborer,  as  also  from 
the  sketches  of  the  same  original  by  the  author  of  the  "  Game- 
keeper at  Home." 

I  have  also  to  express  my  best  thanks  for  the  invaluable 
assistance  which,  in  the  production  of  this  work,  I  have  re- 
ceived from  many  friends,  and  from  some  who,  till  it  was 
undertaken,  were  strangers.  Without  this  help  the  book 
could  not  have  been  written.  The  list  of  those  who  have  so 
helped  me  is  long,  and  I  can  only  here  mention  a  few  repre- 
sentative names. 

I  am  deeply  indebted  to  the  several  eminent  noblemen, 
the  management  of  whose  estates  forms  the  subject  of  Chapter 
IV.,  for  the  facilities  afforded  me  for  investigating  their  sys- 
tems of  territorial  administration. 

I  am  not  less  grateful  to  the  following,  whose  names  fol- 
low in  alphabetical  order,  for  much  valuable  information  and 
advice  in  different  parts  of  my  work: — Lord  Carnarvon;  Mr. 
Joseph  Chamberlain,  M.P. ;  Mr.  G.  H.  Croad,  Clerk  of  the  Lon- 
don School  Board;  Bishop  Claughton;  Sir  Charles  Dilke,  M.P. ; 
Mr.  Grant  Duff,  M.P.;  Mr.  T.  H.  Fairer,  Board  of  Trade; 
Canon  Fleming;  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster,  M.P. ;  Mr.  Harrison, 
Assistant  Clerk  of  the  Privy  Council;  Mr.  E.  G.  W.  Herbert, 
Colonial  Office;  Sir  John  Lubbock,  M.P. ;  Sir  Louis  Mallet, 
Indian  Office;  Professor  D.  Marks;  Mr.  Archibald  Milman;  Mr. 
A.  J.  Mundella,  M.P. ;  Mr.  Albert  Pell,  M.P.;  Mr.  C.  Lennox 


Tiii  PREFACE. 

Peel,  Clerk  of  the  Council ;  the  Eev.  Dr.  Morley  Punshon ;  Mr. 
C.  S.  Read,  M.P. ;  the  Pie  v.  Dr.  Stoughton;  Mr.  Edward  James 
Smith;  Sir  Julius  Yogel;  Sir  Henry  Drummond  Wolff,  M.P. 

Many  of  these  gentlemen  have  not  only  given  me  or 
assisted  me  to  obtain  much  useful  information,  but  have  most 
obligingly  read  through  and  revised  various  portions  of  the 
proofs.  Hence,  I  trust  I  have  secured  a  further  guarantee 
against  serious  mistakes,  and  so  invested  the  book  with  an 
additional  value. 

I  have  further  gratefully  to  acknowledge  more  specific 
assistance  than  this.  The  chapter  on  Commercial  and  Finan- 
cial England (VIII.) is  the  work  of  Mr.  J.  Scot  Henderson;  for 
that  on  Criminal  England  (XIV.)  I  am  indebted  to  Major 
Arthur  Griffiths,  Her  Majesty's  Inspector  of  Prisons;  the  Law 
Courts  (XXIV.)  has  been  contributed  by  Mr.  W.  D.  I.  Foulkes, 
Barrister-at-Law  of  the  Inner  Temple;  the  review  of  English 
Philosophy  and  Thought  (XXVII.)  is  from  the  pen  of  Mr. 
W.  L.  Courtney,  Fellow  and  Lecturer  of  New  College,  Oxford, 
and  author  of  "An  Examination  of  Mill";  while  in  the  ckaptei 
on  the  Services  I  have  been  largely  assisted  in  the  naval  por- 
tion by  Captain  Cyprian  A.  G.  Bridge,  R.N. 

T.  H.  S.  ESCOTT. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP.  TAGE 

I.  Introductory        1 

II.  The  English  Village 8 

III.  Great  Landlords,  and  Estate  Management     ...  25 

IV.  Eural  Administration 43 

V'V.  Municipal  Government 59 

*  VI.  Towns  op  Business 79 

VII.  Towns  of  Pleasure 99 

VIII.  Commercial  and  Financial  England 110 

/IX.  Commercial  Administration 130 

X.  The  Working  Classes 141 

XL  The  Working  Classes  (continued) 173 

XII.  Pauperism  and  Thrift 201 

XIII.  Co-operation 222 

XIV.  Criminal  England 238 

XV.  Traveling  and  Hotels 256 

XVI.  Educational  England 272 

XVII.  The  Social  Eevolution 298 

>  XVIII.  The  Structure  of  English  Society 310 

i/XIX.  Society  and  Politics 326 

XX.  Crown  and  Ci:owd 338 


X  CONTENTS. 

\ 

i    »     -  '  -  -   > 

CHAP.  PAGE 

XXI.  Official  England  . 355 

XXII.  The  House  of  Commons 372 

XXIII.  The   House  of  Lords 390 

XXIV.  The  Law  Courts 411 

XXV.  The  Services 431 

XXVI.  Religious  England 452 

XXVII.  Modern  Philosophical  Thought 483 

XXVIII.  Modern  Culture  and  Literature 50(3 

XXIX.  Popular  Amusements 542 

XXX.  Professional  England 562 

XXXI.  Imperial  England  and  Conclusion 580 


// 


ENGLAN 


-on  >■,-*  vo 


CHAPTER    I 


Ir-cSt*. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

The  Scope  and  Purpose  of  the  Present  Work — New  Forces  introduced  into  the 
National  Life  during  the  Present  Century — Social,  Political,  Moral,  and 
Intellectual  Problems  of  the  Day — What  are  the  Duties  of  the  State? — 
What  the  Imperial  Mission  of  England  ? — The  Age  not  only  one  of  Tran- 
sition but  of  Organization — Economy  of  Forces  of  all  kinds — General  Con- 
tents of  this  Work,  and  Treatment  adopted. 

A  WORK  honestly  attempting  a  comprehensive  and  faithful  pic- 
ture of  the  social  and  political  condition  of  modern  England 
requires  small  apology.  The  nineteenth  century,  in  this  country  as 
elsewhere,  has  not  only  been  marked  by  changes  and  improvements 
vast  and  sweeping  in  degree,  but  by  achievements  wholly  new  in 
kind.  Methods  and  institutions  long  existing  among  us  have  been 
brought  nearer  to  perfection;  forces  previously  unfelt  or  unknown 
have  been  introduced.  On  the  one  hand,  there  may  be  witnessed 
the  realized  result  of  the  complete  operations  of  centuries;  on  the 
other,  there  is  visible  the  as  yet  unfinished  product  of  agencies  still 
at  work.  At  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  though  we  had 
perfected  the  stage-coach,  no  new  principle  had  been  applied  to 
locomotion  since  the  Romans  conquered  this  island,  or,  to  go  back  j 
to  a  date  still  more  remote,  since  Cyrus  introduced  the  system  of 
posting  into  the  empire  which  he  conquered  upwards  of  three  thou- 
sand years  ago.  Steam,  at  the  same  time  that  it  changed  the  con- 
ditions of  traveling,  effected  a  social  revolution  throughout  the 
world.  Co-operating  with  the  electric  telegraph,  and  equalizing 
the  relations  of  space  and  time,  as  gunpowder  equalized  the  vari- 
ous degrees  of  physical  strength,  it  brought  the  country  to  the 
doors  of  the  town,  and  bridged  over  the  gulf  between  England  and 
the  countries  of  the  Continent.  Co-operating  with  free  trade,  it 
raised  us  to  a  perilous  height  of  commercial  prosperity,  and  added 
dignity  and  influence  to  the  principle  of  wealth. 


2  ENGLAND. 

Analogous  alterations  have  been  -wrought  in  the  political  and  the 
intellectual  world.  A  system  of  genuinely  popular  government  has 
been  established,  and  in  the  political  Reform  Bills  of  1832  and  1867 
we  have  had  two  measures  entirely  different  in  scope  and  principle 
from  any  previously  passed  by  an  English  Parliament.  For  the 
first  tune  in  our  history  the  attempt  has  been  made  with  earnest- 
ness and  success  to  introduce  an  effective  scheme  of  popular  educa- 
tion; and  for  the  first  time  also  there  has  been  witnessed  the  uni- 
versal dissemination  of  a  popular  literature,  fettered  by  no  political 
or  religious  constraints. 

As  we  have  seen  the  enlightenment,  so  we  have  seen  the  upheaval 
and  the  fusion  of  classes.  Old  lines  of  social  demarkation  have  been 
obliterated,  ancient  landmarks  of  thought  and  belief  removed,  new 
standards  of  expediency  and  right  created.  The  same  process  has 
been  unceasingly  active  in  the  domain  of  politics,  philosophy,  liter- 
ature, and  art.  It  may  be,  here  and  there,  revival  rather  than  revo- 
lution; a  return  to  the  old  rather  than  a  departure  to  the  new;  but, 
in  many  cases,  the  idols  which  we  reverenced  but  a  little  time  ago 
have  been  destroyed.  We  have  made  for  ourselves  strange  gods, 
and  we  live  in  a  state  of  transition  to  a  yet  unknown  order.  The 
precise  functions  of  the  new  philosophy,  science,  theology,  and  art, 
are  as  loosely  defined  as  the  exact  provinces  of  the  three  estates  of 
the  realm,  or  the  future  relations  of  the  different  component  parts 
of  society.  We  hold  enlarged  conceptions  of  our  place  in  the  scale 
of  the  peoples  of  the  earth,  but  what  England's  mission  really  is  we 
have  not  quite  decided.  We  are  in  process  of  making  up  our  minds 
what  respect  or  attention,  in  fixing  the  destinies  of  a  great  nation, 
is  due  to  the  popular  will,  what  obeisance  to  the  Sovereign,  what 
confidence  to  the  Sovereign's  advisers.  We  are  in  perplexity  as  to 
the  course  we  should  steer  between  the  democratic  and  the  monar- 
chical principles.  It  is  a  moot  point  whether  the  governed  or  the 
governors  should  be  the  judges  of  the  plan  of  government  that  is 
adopted.  It  is  an  open  question  whether  we  should  accept  measures 
because  of  the  man,  or  base  our  estimate  of  the  man  upon  his  meas- 
ures. The  respective  rights  of  employer  and  employed,  capital  and 
industry,  are  an  unsolved  problem.  A  clear  and  generally  accepted 
notion  of  the  duties  of  the  State  has  still  to  be  formed.  Politicians 
and  sociologists  debate  on  platforms,  and  in  magazines — five-and- 
twenty  years  ago  it  would  have  been  in  pamphlets — as  to  the  amount 
of  legislation  with  which  it  is  necessary  to  protect  the  interests  of  a 
class  and  the  well-being  of  the  individual.  If  it  falls  within  the 
sphere  of  Government  to  provide  the  machinery  of  education  and 


INTRODUCTORY.  3 

health  for  the  community,  up  to  what  point  is  it  the  duty  of  Gov- 
ernment to  insist  upon  its  use  ?  How  far  are  men  to  be  protected 
against  their  own  vices,  or  the  consequences  of  those  vices?    Arc 

the  masses  to  be  taught  sobriety  by  Act  of  Parliament?  Is  the 
drunkard  to  be  condemned,  or  to  be  suffered  to  condemn  himself, 
to  close  confinement  for  his  drunkenness?  Is  incontinence  of  all 
Icinds  to  carry  with  it  its  own  probable  punishment  ? 

At  every  turn  some  vital  issue  presents  itself  in  a  guise  more  or 
less  easily  to  be  recognized.  Upwards  of  fifty  years  ago,  the  Muni- 
cipal Corporation  Act,  which  conferred  upon  ratepayers  the  right  of 
electing  their  municipal  authorities,  the  Town  Councilors,  and  thus 
established  the  principle  of  local  and  representative  self-government, 
was  hailed  with  enthusiasm  as  the  charter  of  the  provincial  liberties 
of  England.  The  necessity  of  the  existence  of  a  central  authority  in 
the  capital  was  admitted,  but  it  was  half  believed  that  its  controlling 
influence  woidd  seldom  or  never  be  felt.  If,  in  the  interval  that  has 
elapsed  since  1835,  free  play  has  been  given  in  many  respects  to  the 
principle  of  local  independence,  a  certain  later  tendency  towards 
its  abridgment  cannot  be  ignored.  The  great  provincial  towns  and 
cities  of  England  have  acquired  fresh  power  and  importance.  The 
self-government  of  villages  has  almost  entirely  disappeared.  Even 
as  regards  the  great  towns  and  entire  urban  or  raral  districts,  the 
central  Government  practically  claims  an  authority  which  is  by  no 
means  unresistingly  admitted.  Manchester,  Liverpool,  and  Birming- 
ham have  grown  in  greatness  and  in  influence;  but  London  has  be- 
come increasingly  the  metropolis  of  the  empire,  and  a  minute  and 
far-reaching  system  of  bureaucratic  authority  is  exercised  from 
Whitehall,  within  a  radius  equal  in  extent  to  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  United  Kingdom. 

Modern  legislation  has  created  new  departments  of  State.  We 
have  entire  armies  of  State  inspectors  of  all  kinds.  We  accumulate 
annual  libraries  of  local  reports.  Applications  to  the  executive  in 
London  or  to  Parliament  at  Westminster  are  imperatively  enforced, 
upon  a  multitude  of  novel  and  miscellaneous  pleas.  The  govern- 
ment of  our  prisons  has  been  vested  in  a  body  of  commissioners 
nominated  by  the  Crown.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  question  which 
perplexes  the  Government,  and  of  which  no  satisfactory  solution  has 
yet  been  proposed,  whether  the  administration  of  counties  should 
be  transferred  from  the  hands  of  the  country  gentlemen  to  the 
nominees  and  representatives  of  the  ratepayers.  These  are  not  the 
only  matters  in  which  the  supremacy  and  responsibility  of  the  State 
are  closely  canvassed.     Is  the  State,  in  addition  to  its  duties  as  the 


4  ENGLAND. 

champion  of  the  different  communities  which  live  under  it,  to  fulfill 
the  function  of  an  accommodating  money-lender,  on  easy  terms,  for 
the  carrying  out  of  local  improvements  ?  THiat  is  the  exact  point 
at  which  the  State  is  under  an  obligation  to  relieve  local  rates  out 
of  imperial  taxation,  and  when  and  why  does  that  obligation  cease  ? 

Nor  is  it  only  the  position  and  the  attributes  of  the  English  Gov- 
ernment at  home  which  are  the  subjects  of  controversy  and  uncer- 
tainty.  Tlie  duties  of  the  English  Government  abroad,  the  place 
which  England  should  fill  in  the  hierarchy  of  the  sovereign  nations 
cf  the  earth,  the  extent  to  which  and  the  channels  by  which  her 
authority  and  influence  should  make  themselves  felt,  are  points  on 
which  there  is  much  dispute,  much  enthusiasm,  but  no  immediate 
prospect  of  permanent  agreement.  It  is  thought  by  some  that  we 
have  already  witnessed  an  emphatic  and  an  abiding  protest  against 
the  political  doctrines  which  are  conmionly  associated  with  the  name 
I  of  Cobden.  The  English  nation,  it  is  asserted,  have  loudly  test:  I 
to  then  desire  that  England  should  be  something  more  than  the 
emporium  of  Europe,  a  place  of  merchandise  and  barter  for  the 
nations  of  the  world.  The  popular  veto  upon  an  unqualified  ac- 
ceptance of  the  doctrine  of  non-intervention  is  said  to  have  gone 
forth.  AVe  are,  if  this  view  be  correct,  thirsting  for  the  responsi- 
bilities of  empire,  and  panting  for  the  fresh  and  invigorating  atmos- 
phere which  the  periodical  enlargement  of  our  imperial  boundaries 
brings  with  it.  Strong  voices  of  grave  warning  have  been  raised 
against  these  ambitions.  It  lias  been  hinted  that  we  should  pre- 
pare ourselves  for  a  reduction  rather  than  an  increase  of  our  im- 
perial cares,  and  that  we  should  witness  with  satisfaction,  since  it  is 
approaching  with  the  certainty  of  fate,  a  contraction  of  the  foreign 
dominions  of  England  within  narrower  limits.  If,  it  is  urged  by 
these  monitors,  we  rush  forward  to  the  great  enterprises  which  we 
are  heedlessly  encouraged  to  undertake,  we  shall  reap  our  future 
reward  in  bitter  mortification,  in  angry  discontent,  and,  it  may  be, 
in  domestic  revolution. 

Between  these  two  schools  of  counselors  England  seems  to  halt. 
It  is  not  necessary  here  to  forecast  the  selection  which  she  may 
finally  make,  or  the  national  consequences  which  that  selection 
will  involve.  Upon  one  or  two  historical  facts,  and  some  of  our 
more  prominent  social  conditions,  it  may  be  desirable  in  connection 
with  these  matters  very  briefly  to  dwell.  If  the  Englishman  wants 
some  more  definite  and  tangible  guarantee  of  foreign  empire  than 
a  vague  boast  that  the  sun  never  sets  upon  the  British  flag;  if, 
instead   of   a   personal   devotion   to   fatherland,    the   old-fashioned 


INTRODUCTORY.  £ 

belief  that  England,  and  England  alone,  was  abundantly  sufficient 
for  all  bis  wants,  be  would  fain  bestride  the  world  like  ;i  Colossus, 
it  is  to  be  remembered  that  there  is  much  in  the  infectious  spirit 
of  the  age  to  explain  such  a  sentiment,  Is  not  the  present  I 
epoch  of  immense  transactions  and  colossal  speculations?  Ti 
we  not  imported  the  idea  of  vastness  from  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic?  and  are  we  not  attempting  its  realization  here?  Every- 
where small  establishments  have  been  swallowed  up  in  large.  The 
private  farm  is  absorbed  in  the  limited  liability  company;  the  pri- 
vate bank  in  the  joint-stock.  The  tradesman  no  sooner  finds  him- 
self doing  well  than  he  is  seized  with  a  desire  to  extend  his  prem- 
ises; and,  if  matters  prosper,  he  will  presently  buy  up  the  section 
of  a  street.  Above  all  things,  it  is  the  era  of  material  triumphs. 
The  miraculous  feats  of  our  engineers,  the  immense  development  of 
machinery,  the  mastery  which  on  every  hand  man  seems  acquiring 
over  nature,  have  brought  with  them  to  Englishmen  a  sense  of 
boundless  power — a  conviction  that  they  hare  the  command  of  re- 
source, and  the  fertility  of  invention,  which  mark  them  out  as  all 
creation's  heirs.  Amid  the  ceaseless  clang  of  hammers  and  the 
everlasting  roar  of  human  industry,  the  Englishman  unconsciously 
apprehends  some  echo  of  the  far-off  infinite.  Caiiyle  is  welcomed 
as  a  great  teacher,  because  he  appeals  to  this  inarticulate  feeling, 
and,  without  his  readers  being  precisely  aware  of  it,  shapes  it  into 
ruggedly  eloquent  utterance.  Is  it  an  idle  fancy  to  see  in  the  vague 
popular  desire  for  an  indefinite  extension  of  the  dominions  and  the 
responsibilities  of  England  an  enlarged  reflection  of  the  insatiate  pas- 

I  sion  that  is  generated  by  the  social  conditions  under  which  we  live  ? 

But  the  new  spirit  of  boundless  empire  means  more  than  this. 

If  it  is  a  reaction  against  a  real  or  imaginary  neglect  of  the  imperial 

/interests  of  England  in  the  past  few  years  by  England's  governors, 
it  is  in  a  great  degree  the  significant  product  of  two  separate  forces 
— the  one  practical,  the  other  sentimental.  England  is  a  country 
whose  population  is  perpetually  overflowing  her  narrow  geographi- 

'  cal  limits.  She  wants  careers  for  her  sons;  she  wants  safe  opportu- 
nities of  investment  for  her  capital.  "With  an  enormously  devel- 
oped middle  class  such  as  we  now  have,  it  is  felt  that  there  would 
be  no  adequate  number  of  avenues  of  employment  if  our  foreign 
possessions  were  reduced.  India  and  the  colonies  afford  occupation 
for  tens  of  thousands  of  young  men  born  to  decent  station.  Even 
thus,  more  occupation,  and  that  of  a  dignified  or  gentleman-like  kind, 
is  wanted. 

Nor  is  the  sentimental  force  one  whose  influence  can  be  neg- 


6  ENGLAND. 

lected.  The  immense  influence  of  wealth  with  the  middle  classes 
has  resulted  in  a  larger  demand  for  professions  that  commend 
themselves  to  the  polite  world.  Such  a  profession  is  the  profession 
of  arms.  The  soldier  has  been  always  a  social  favorite.  The  aboli- 
tion of  purchase  in  the  army  has  resulted  in  the  establishment  of  a 
professional  army,  and,  by  giving  them  a  kind  of  family  interest  in 
the  calhng  of  arms,  has  created  a  wider  and  more  intensely  military 
Bpirit  among  the  middle  classes  than  once  seemed  possible.  The 
volunteer  movement  has  operated  in  precisely  the  same  direction. 
An  imperial  policy  not  only  means  abundance  of  civilian,  but  regu- 
larity of  military  employment.  At  the  same  time  that  it  commends 
itself  to  the  English  mind  as  a  policy  worthy  of  a  race  which  has 
made  its  greatness  by  the  sword,  it  is  recognized  also  as  stamped 
with  the  more  or  less  avowed  approval  of  the  upper  classes  of  En- 
glish society. 

It  is  not  the  only  characteristic  of  our  age  that  it  is  transitional. 
It  may  further  be  described  as  one  distinguished  by  the  economy 
and  organization  of  forces  of  all  kinds.  "While  science  teaches  us 
i  how  to  prevent  the  waste  of  motive  power,  philanthropy  encourages 
us  to  prevent  the  wholesale  waste  of  humanity.  Thus  it  is  that  we 
are  constantly  endeavoring  to  amend  our  educational  system,  to 
provide  more  effective  machinery  for  the  promotion  of  thrift,  for 
the  distribution  of  charity,  and  for  the  cultivation  of  other  social  and 
political  virtues.  Household  suffrage  not  only  exists,  but  in  a  vari- 
ety of  ways  there  is  visible  the  organized  effort  to  insure  that  its 
active  exercise  shall  be  increasingly  productive  of  substantial  results. 
The  working  classes  are  acquiring  more  and  more  political  power;  at 
the  same  time  they  are  being  taught  how  that  they  can  make  power 
more  directly  and  definitely  felt.  "Whatever  virtues,  capacities,  en- 
ergies, may  reside  in  any  part  of  our  population,  these  are  now  in 
process  of  being  drawn  forth,  and  pressed  into  practical  service. 
•Sides  are  being  formed,  specific  parts  taken,  schools  of  thought 
multiply,  societies  for  action  increase.  "What  was  simple  becomes 
complex,  what  was  always  complex  becomes  more  complex  still. 

It  will  be  the  chief  pari  of  our  duty  in  the  following  pages  to 
analyze  and  explain  the  constituents  of  the  artificial  civilization,  and 
of  the  minutely  elaborated  institutions  of  the  time.  Such  an  attempt, 
it  is  believed,  will  at  least  have  the  merit  of  novelty.  The  laws  and 
polity  under  which  we  live  have  received  much  of  learned  comment; 
their  history  and  principles  are  written  in  encyclopedias  and  in  text- 
books. But  they  have,  for  the  most  part,  been  treated  in  the  spirit 
of  the  constitutional  anatomist;  they  have  been  examined,  not  so 


INTR  OD  UC  TOR  Y.  7 

much  in  their  practical  working  and  mutual  relations  while  working, 
as  in  the  theory  of  their  mechanism  while  at  rest.  They  have  been 
studied  more  as  abstractions  than  as  concrete  realities.  Hence  it  is 
that  Englishmen  and  Englishwomen  generally  lack  a  vividly  com- 
plete idea  of  the  institutions  under  which  they  live,  and  have  no 
clear  and  comprehensive  notion  of  the  particular  forces  at  work  in 
the  atmosphere  around  them.  Every  one  knows  that  we  have  in 
England  local  self-government;  few  know  how  in  practice  it  Is 
ministered.  In  the  same  way,  it  is  universally  recognized  that  we 
enjoy  immense  commercial  prosperity,  but  it  is  only  those  person- 
ally concerned  who  have  an  accurate  acquaintance  with  the  details 
of  management  on  which  that  prosperity  depends.  The  same  re- 
marks are  applicable  to  all  departments  of  our  national  life.  The 
names  are  familiar  to  each  one  of  us;  the  realities  are  familiar  only 
to  the  comparatively  limited  number  whom  they  specially  affect. 

What  in  this  work  will  be  done  for  institutions  will  be  done  in 
the  same  manner  for  classes  and  for  occupations,  for  professions 
and  pursuits;  for  the  refining  influences  of  culture,  as  well  as  for 
the  organization  of  commerce :  for  our  social  not  less  than  our  mu- 
nicipal and  political  system;  for  the  amusements  and  recreations 
of  the  age,  as  Avell  as  for  its  literature,  philosophy,  art,  religion,  and 
law.  Necessarily  the  space  that  can  be  devoted  to  each  of  these 
themes  is  comparatively  small,  but  into  that  space  materials,  it  is 
hoped,  may  be  collected  which  will  present  the  reader  with  a  com- 
prehensive view  of  the  influences,  the  tendencies,  and  the  general 
economy  of  English  life.  "We  shall  pass  from  the  simpler  elements 
of  our  civilization  and  government  as  they  may  be  beheld  in  rural 
England  to  the  busier  and  more  highly  organized  customs  and  ad- 
ministration of  our  great  centers  of  trade  and  industry.  We  shall 
make  the  acquaintance  of  typical  members  of  our  laboring  com- 
munity in  town  and  country,  and  of  the  changes  in  the  conditions 
of  their  life,  whether  actually  accomplished  or  in  progress.  Having 
thus  seen,  in  concrete  shape,  the  personnel  of  the  English  nation  at 
large,  then  temper,  tastes,  toils,  and  pastimes,  it  will  remain  to  ex- 
amine the  social  organization  of  the  polite  world,  and  the  institutions 
and  principles  established  among  us  for  the  administration  of  the  em- 
pire. At  each  step  we  shall  be  conscious  of  a  gradual  ascent.  We 
shall  be  working  constantly  upwards,  and  arriving  at  the  general  from 
the  particular.  If  this  method  seems  to  involve  the  inversion  of  the 
natural  order  of  importance,  it  may  not  be  unattended  by  some  advan- 
tages, and  the  whole  will  be  perhaps,  the  better  understood  when  it 
has  been  seen  what  are  the  parts  and  influences  of  which  it  consists. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE     ENGLISH     VILLAGE. 

An  English  Village  a  Microcosm  of  the  English  Constitution — Eelations  of 
Squire,  Clergyman,  and  General  Body  of  Parishioners  —  Sketch  of  the 
Country  Parson  :  his  Day  ;  his  multifarious  Duties,  Eeligious  and  Secular — 
Sketches  of  Country  Parsons  who  do  not  conform  to  this  Type — A  Disor- 
ganized Parish — Hostile  Estimates  of  the  Country  Clergyman  of  the  En- 
glish Church — His  Eelations  to  the  Fanners  and  Dissenters  of  his  Parish. 

AN  English  village  may  Toe  described  as  a  microcosm  not  only  of 
the  English  nation,  but  of  the  English  Constitution.  Roughly 
speaking,  there  is  to  be  seen  in  every  English  parish  the  miniature 
pattern  and  reflection  of  the  three  estates  of  the  realm — the  lords 
spiritual,  the  lords  temporal,  the  commons.  The  representative  of 
the  lords  spiritual  is  the  clergyman;  of  the  lords  temporal,  the 
squire;  of  the  commons,  the  tenant  and  villager;  while  squire  and 
clergyman  between  them,  like  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament,  prac- 
tically exercise  not  a  few  of  those  functions  which  in  their  essence 
pertain  to  the  Sovereign  only.  The  normal  or  ideal  state  of  things 
in  a  country  parish  is  one  under  which  there  is  absolute  unanimity 
between  the  action  and  the  will  of  the  representatives  of  the  spir- 
itual and  temporal  powers — that  is,  between  the  parson  and  the 
squire — and  where  the  inhabitants  acquiesce  in  the  decision  and 
policy  of  these  as  in  the  dispensation  of  a  beneficent  wisdom.  Nor 
is  the  theory  of  English  village  life,  or  the  analogy  that  has  been 
suggested  between  the  State  and  the  parish,  destroyed  by  the  fact 
that  deviations  fi-om  the  ideal  standard  are  not  unknown.  For  the 
most  part,  the  elements  to  which  village  life  may  be  reduced  com- 
bine with  tolerable  harmony  in  practice;  and  when  there  is  discord, 
it  is  not  the  system,  but  clumsiness  or  error  in  its  administration, 
which  is  to  blame. 

Recent  legislation,  as  will  be  presently  seen,  has  in  some  respects 
materially  affected  the  relations  between  those  in  whom  are  vested 
the  secular  and  religious  jurisdiction  of  English  country  districts. 


THE    ENGLISH    VILLAGE. 

But  the  main  principles  of  the  system  are  now  what  they  alw; 
have  been,  and  completely  to  eradicate  them  would  entail  a  social 

revolution.     Just  as  the  squire — the  word  is  used  for  convenience' 

:  sake,  whether  the  local  great  man  be  peer,  baronet,  small  country 
gentleman,  or  that  combination  of  minister  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land and  territorial  potentate  which  Sydney  Smith  has  caUed  Squar- 
son— necessarily  has  a  moral  iniluence  added  to  his  secular  condi- 
tion, so  the  clergyman  has  attributes  distinctly  secular  in  addition 
to  his  ecclesiastical  prerogatives.     The  Church  of  England  lies  at 

»  the  root  of  the  parochial  system  of  England.  The  subdivisions  of  the 
country  are  ecclesiastical.  The  local  dispensary,  the  poor-rate,  the 
way-rate,  the  vestry,  arc  parochial  institutions  in  the  administra- 
tion of  which  the  clergyman  has,  in  virtue  of  his  position  as  cler- 
gyman, a  legal  voice.  Not  merely  the  village  parson,  rector,  or 
vicar  has  definite  legal  duties  and  authority,  but  the  clergyman's 
churchwarden,  the  parish  clerk,  the  sexton.  The  unity  between 
Church  and  State  is  typified  in  the  administration  of  an  English 
village  at  every  tu*rn.  The  squire  is  a  magistrate:  not  improbably 
the  rector  is  a  magistrate  too.  The  clergyman  and  the  congrega- 
tion have  each  their  churchwarden.  The  parish  clerk,  beadle,  and 
sexton  have  all  of  them  a  legal  and  civil  status,  and  in  a  great  num- 
ber of  cases  share,  with  the  clergyman,  whose  nominees  they  prob- 
ably are,  responsibility  for  the  order  of  the  parish. 

The  position  and  responsibility  of  the  clergyman  vary  according 
to  circumstances.  The  growing  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  squire 
is  to  be  elsewhere  than  at  his  country  home  during  the  greater  part 
of  the  year.  His  parliamentary  duties  demand  his  presence  in  Lon- 
don; his  social  obligations  compel  him  to  make  a  round  of  visits; 
regard  for  his  health  and  that  of  his  family  renders  it  necessary  that 
he  should  travel  annually  for  a  few  weeks.  He  is,  in  effect,  for  nine 
months  out  of  every  twelve,  an  absentee  landlord;  but  he  has,  he 
remarks,  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  in  his  absence  every  thing 
is  looked  after  admirably.  He  has  an  agenjt  in  whom  he  reposes 
the  utmost  confidence,  and  who  has  carte-blanche  to  do  what  is  fair 
and  reasonable  in  the  interest  of  his  tenants.     He  has  a  clergyman 

I  whom  he  pronounces  a  blessing  to  the  entire  neighborhood.  Thus, 
one  of  two  things  happens:  either  all  local  authority,  secular  as  well 
as  ecclesiastical,  becomes  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  the  clergy- 
man, or  a  struggle  develops  itself  between  the  clergyman  and  the 

I  representative  of  the  squire — his  agent.  It  depends  in  each  case 
on  the  character  of  the  clergyman  and  the  squire  which  of  the  two 
alternatives  is  realized.     In  the  majority  of  instances  the  two  author- 


10  ENGLAND. 

ities  pull  well  together.  But  perhaps  the  best  way  of  forming  an 
idea  of  the  working  of  the  system  in  English  life  will  be  to  take  a 
concrete  illustration. 

/  We  are,  let  the  reader  suppose,  engaged  in  visiting  an  agricul- 
tural Tillage,  whose  population  is  some  five  or  six  hundred  souls, 
situated  half  a  dozen  miles  froni  the  nearest  railway  station.  It  is 
the  month  of  June;  every  feature  in  the  peaceful  landscape  is  in 
the  perfection  of  its  beauty;  the  fresh  deep  green  of  the  English 
foliage — the  freshest  and  deepest  in  all  the  world — has  as  yet  lost 
nothing  of  its  depth  or  freshness;  there  is  an  odor  of  newly-made 
hay  in  the  air;  the  music  of  the  whetstone  sharpening  the  mower's 
scythe  may  be  heard  in  the  morning,  and  all  day  long  the  lark  carols 
high  overhead.  The  whole  village,  in  fact,  is  busily  occupied  with 
the  hay  harvest,  and  the  farmers  are  intent  upon  getting  it  in  before 
there  comes  the  break  in  the  weather  threatened  by  certain  ugly 
barometrical  signs.  The  village  is  a  purely  agrictdtural  one;  it  con- 
tains a  general  store  shop,  a  shoemaker's,  a  small  tailor's,  a  small 
inn,  and  one  or  two  beer  shops.  The  lord  of  the  manor  is  also  the 
representative  of  the  county  in  Parliament,  and,  as  is  incumbent 
upon  an  elective  legislator,  is,  in  these  da}rs  of  leafy  June,  busily 
engaged  in  his  senatorial  duties  at  Westminster.  A  better  scpiire 
no  parson,  as  the  parson  himself  admits,  could  wish.  Indeed,  the 
two  have  been  friends  together  from  boyhood.  They  were  compan- 
ions at  school,  played  in  the  school  eleven  at  Lord's,  went  to  the 
university  in  the  same  October  term.  The  squire/  is  not  a  very  great 
landlord,  for  his  property  in  that  neighborhood  barely  produces 
£3,000  a  year,  but  he  has  possessions  elsewhere,  and  he  is  not  with- 
out judicious  and  profitable  investments.  He)  is  liberal,  sees  that 
the  dwellings  of  his  laborers  are  kept  hi  proper  condition,  gives 
largely  to  all  local  funds,  and  has  just  built  some  very  handsome 
schools.  But  he  has  never  been  guilty  of  the  indiscriminate  bounty 
which  is  the  parent  of  pauperism.  He  has  been  fortunate  in  secur- 
ing as  his  bailiff  and  agent  a  respectable  gentleman,  who  has  no 
social  ambition  of  an  aggressive  character,  and  no  wish  to  assert  his 
authority  in  opposition  to  that  of  the  rector. 

And  the  rector  himself — what  of  him  ?  That  is  the  rectory,  two 
or  three  hundred  yards  this  side  of  the  church.  A  substantial 
building,  set  in  a  pleasant  garden,  girt  with  a  hedge  of  fuchsias, 
myrtle,  and  laurels.  The  glebe  attached  to  the  living  is  extensive, 
and  from  it  indeed  comes  the  larger  portion  of  the  rectorial  revenue. 
A  few  fields  the  parish  priest  keeps  in  his  own  hands,  and  he  too, 
like  his  farmers,  has  been  busy  hay-making  and  hay-carrying  in  this 


THE    ENGLISH    VILLAGE.  11 

glorious  June  weather.  It  is  now  the  afternoon,  and  tln^ee  or  four 
hoxirs  in  every  afternoon — the  interval,  that  is,  between  lunch  and 
dinner — it  is  his  habit  to  devote  to  walking,  driving,  riding,  or,  more 
commonly,  pedestrian  tours  of  parochial  inspection,  and  visits  to  his 
parishioners.  At  the  present  moment  he  is  strolling  through  one 
of  Farmer  A.'s  fields,  and — he  is  an  authority  on  these  matters — 
is  taking  up  and  smelling,  in  the  approved  fashion  of  the  connois- 
seur, some  of  the  grass  which  has  just  fallen  ridgeways  before  the 
mower's  scythe.  He  has  a  well-made,  upright  figure;  a  clear,  open 
expression  of  countenance;  he  is  rather  over  fifty  years  of  age,  and 
his  dress  is  of  black  cloth,  distinguishable  in  hue  but  scarcely  in  cut 
from  that  which,  were  he  at  home  instead  of  at  Westminster,  the 
squire  himself  would  wear.  He  chats  occasionally  with  the  men 
who  are  busily  employed  in  filling  the  carts,  or  in  any  of  the  duties 
of  the  field,  but  you  may  notice  that  he  is  very  careful  to  avoid  the 
appearance  of  inflicting  his  company  on  any  one  of  them. 

Let  us  see  how  he  is  occupied  at  other  hours  of  the  day.  Fam- 
ily prayers  are  over  by  half-past  eight,  for  the  rector  likes  to  have 
finished  his  breakfast  and  to  get  to  his  study  by  nine.  This  morn- 
ing he  is  particularly  busy;  there  are  letters  to  answer,  a  sermon  to 
prepare,  diocesan  documents  to  be  read  and  signed,  and  there,  is  a 
great  deal  of  reading  which  he  is  anxious  to  do.  He  has  scarcely 
sat  down  to  his  tea  and  toast,  with  yesterday's  Tirm s,  just  arrived, 
at  his  side,  when  a  knock  comes  at  the  door.  It  is  Martha  Hodge, 
who  wants  to  know  when  her  baby  can  be  christened;  or  John 
Giles,  who  is  anxious  to  fix  the  day  and  hour  for  his  Reverence  to 
tie  the  knot  between  himself  and  Sarah  Stokes;  or  it  may  be  that 
one  of  the  fanners'  wives  has  called  round  to  speak  to  the  rector's 
lady  on  the  subject  of  the  tunes  and  hymns  which  were  sung  last, 
or  will  be  sung  next  Sunday;  or  it  is  a  laborer's  wife,  who  has  a  tale 
of  sorrow  and  want  to  impart,  who  seeks  relief  from  great  destitu- 
tion, and  who  is  striving  up  to  the  last  to  keep  out  of  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  "the  House."  At  last  he  has  disposed  of  some  half-dozen 
of  these  interruptions,  and  is  secure  in  his  library,  deep  in  papers 
and  in  thought.  But  his  seclusion  is  not  to  remain  long  unbroken. 
The  inevitable  knock  at  the  door  comes,  and  one  of  the  parochial 
functionaries  is  announced  as  waiting  to  see  him.  It  is  his  church- 
warden, whose  duty  it  is  to  inform  him  that  one  of  his  congregation 
— a  farmer  of  a  controversial  turn,  or  a  farmer's  wife  or  daughter, 
with  a  nice  eye  for  ritual  propriety,  has  taken  exception  to  some- 
thing that  was  said,  sung,  or  done  in  church  last  Sunday;  protests 
that  he  or  she  distinctly  saw  the  pastor  make,  or  fail  to  make,  some 


12  ENGLAND. 

specific  genuflexion  at  a  certain  point  of  the  service;  complains  that 
in  his  or  her  opinion  the  language  of  such-and-such  a  hymn  smacks 
too  much  of  Popery  or  Calvinism;  declares  that  between  the  tune  to 
which  the  organist  (who  happens  to  be  the  rector's  eldest  daughter) 
played  it,  and  a  music-hall  ditty,  the  ah  of  which  was  recently 
ground  out  by  a  nomad  Italian  organ-boy  who  chanced  to  be  pass- 
ing through  the  village,  there  was  a  suspiciously  strong  resemblance. 
The  object  for  which  the  interview  is  sought  may  be  of  a  less 
frivolous  character.  The  parish  is  disturbed  by  some  crime,  agi- 
tated by  some  scandal,  or  is  threatened  by  some  nuisance,  big  with 
the  seeds  of  death  and  disease  to  the  inhabitants.  The  question, 
therefore,  submitted  to  the  parish  clergyman  by  churchwarden, 
parish  clerk,  or  beaclle,  is  whether  immediate  application  should  not 
be  made  to  the  head  of  the  local  constabulary,  or  to  the  local  sani- 
tary inspector,  or  to  whatever  other  official  has  cognizance  of  the 
special  cause  of  danger  or  offence.  Nor  do  the  secular  responsibili- 
ties of  the  country  clergyman  end  here.  If  the  village  post-office  is 
also  a  savings-bank,  those  of  his  parishioners  who  are  of  thrifty 
habits  will  be  able  to  transact  then*  own  small  financial  business 
without  his  intervention.  But  it  ofteu  happens  that  no  such  encour- 
agement to  thrift  as  a  savings  bank  in  connection  with  the  post-of- 
fice exists,  and  in  this  case  the  rector  will  frequently  find  himself 
/  doing  duty  as  village  banker.  Occasionally,  too,  he  discharges  in 
minor  maladies  the  functions  of  the  village  doctor.  The  local  iEscu- 
lapius,  or  the  Hippocrates  employed  by  the  guardians,  lives  at  some 
little  distance,  and  has,  it  may  be,  besides,  an  objection  to  attending 
gratuitous  patients.  There  are  medicines  to  be  prescribed,  sooth- 
ing drinks  and  nutritious  diet  to  be  sent  to  the  sick-room.  No 
squire  who  for  eight  or  nine  months  out  of  the  twelve  is  an  ab- 
sentee, however  well-disposed,  and  however  comprehensive  the  in- 
structions which  he  may  have  left  to  his  servants,  can  entirely  relieve 
the  clergyman  as  a  dispenser  of  material  comforts  and  relief.  Then, 
as  the  rector  or  vicar  is  something  of  a  banker  and  a  doctor,  so  too 
is  he  something  of  a  lawyer  and  general  agent  as  well.  He  is  often 
invoked  to  arbitrate  in  family  differences;  he  is  expected  to  procure 
occupation  for  lads  and  maidens  who  wish  to  go  out  into  the  world. 
He  is,  in  fact,  looked  upon  as  an  oracle  whose  inspiration  is  never 
to  fail,  and  as  a  source  of  charity  which  is  never  to  run  dry.  Of  the 
ten  or  fifteen  thousand  beneficed  clergymen  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, it  is  the  exception  to  find  one  who  does  not,  to  the  best  of  his 
ability  and  means,  discharge  most  of  these  duties,  and  not  these 
only,  but  many  more. 


THE    ENGLISH    VILLAGE.  13 

TTe  have  spoken  of  the  documents  which  our  parson  has  received 
by  the  morning's  post.  Among  them  are  some  that  come  from  the 
Education  Office,  and  relate  to  his  school.  There  are  long  and 
complicated  returns  to  be  filled  up,  which  will  necessitate  a  con- 
ference with  the  schoolmaster  and  schoolmistress.  Possibly  he  has 
no  sooner  mastered  the  contents  of  these  documents,  and  is  busying 
himself  upon  his  sermon,  than  he  receives  a  call  from  the  school- 
master. The  School  Inspector  of  the  district,  a  young  gentleman 
fresh  from  the  university,  has  suddenly  made  his  appearance  on  a 
surprise  visit.  This  youthful  dignitary  has  to  be  duly  met,  and  after- 
wards be  invited  to  luncheon,  and  discoursed  with  on  the  idiosyn- 
crasies of  the  district.  And  this  is  the  lightest  portion  of  the  burden 
which  the  Education  Department  and  the  existing  Education  Acts 
impose  on  the  shoulders  of  the  beneficed  divine.  There  are  school 
committees  which  meet  periodically;  the  parson  himself  frequently 
has  to  do  duty  as  a  house-to-house  visitor  among  the  parents  of  his 
parish,  and  personally  to  inquire  into  the  causes  of  absence:  an 
invidious  task  this,  and  one  for  the  discharge  of  which  some  other 
functionary  might  reasonably  be  provided.  Even  yet  the  catalogue 
of  the  secular  or  semi-secular  offices  of  the  country  parson  is  not 
exhausted.  There  is  many  a  village  clergyman  avIio  has  had  quite 
as  much  experience  as  an  ordinary  solicitor  in  the  drawing  of  wills, 
and  as  habits  of  thrift  increase  among  the  working  classes  there  is  a 
proportionate  increase  also  in  the  duties  of  this  description  which 
devolve  upon  the  minister  of  the  Church. 

The  average  English  rustic  has  a  profound  objection  to,  and 
suspicion  of,  banks  of  deposit  of  any  kind.  Gradually  he  is  over- 
coming his  prejudice  against  the  Post-office  Savings  Bank;  but  as 
a  rule  he  prefers  acting  as  his  own  banker,  and  keeping  in  some 
secret  place  the  money  which  he  has  been  able  to  put  by.  If  he 
be  of  an  unusually  confiding  disposition,  he  will  entrust  his  accum- 
ulated hoard  to  some  individual — the  clergyman,  or  his  landlord. 
Banks  break,  and  firms  go  into  liquidation,  and  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  agricultural  mind  there  is  always  danger  in  numb; 
But  the  squire  or  the  parson  is  an  integral  and  visible  part  of  the 
system  under  which  the  peasant  fives  his  daily  life,  and  thus  it  is 
that  the  parson,  who  is  always  on  the  spot,  is  constantly  commis- 
sioned to  purchase  a  cottage,  or  make  some  other  investment.  The 
treasury  in  which  the  precious  coins — gold,  silver,  and  copper — are 
deposited  is  almost  without  exception  an  old  stocking,  or  tea-pot, 
secreted  in  some  mysterious  corner.  It  is  far  from  unprecedented 
for  the  rustic  capitalists  who  resort  to  this  primitive  mode  of  bank- 


14 


ENGLAND. 


ing  to  have  by  theni  upwards  of  £100.  Unfortunately  it  is  by  no 
means  always  the  case  that  the  possessor  of  this  wealth  is  as  wise  as 
he  or  she  has  been  thrifty,  and  takes  the  precaution  of  bequeathing 
it  in  legal  form.  No  will  has  been  made;  some  friend  or  relation, 
having,  it  may  be,  an  idea  of  the  hoarding  which  has  been  in  process 
for  years,  explores  each  nook  and  cranny  of  the  dwelling,  encounters 
the  tea-pot  or  stocking,  and  secretly  exulting  in  the  truth  that  dead 
men  tell  no  tales,  appropriates  the  contents. 

And  there  are  other  functions  which  our  clergyman  is  called 
upon  to  perform.  He  has  to  attend  to  various  administrative  and 
deliberative  duties  at  stated  intervals  in  the  adjoining  town.  Per- 
haps he  is  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Guardians;  perhaps,  and  more 
probably,  he  is  on  the  directorate  of  the  county  hospital  or  refor- 
matory. And  yet  within  the  limits  of  his  own  village  he  has  hygi- 
enic occupation  enough,  as,  indeed,  has  been  already  shown.  He 
is  the  dispenser  of  not  a  little  charity  of  his  own;  he  is  the  distribu- 
tor and  trustee  of  funds  which  landlords  who  have  property  in  the 
place  leave  to  him  to  manage.  The  task  may  not  involve  much 
labor,  but  it  is  a  singularly  ungrateful  one.  He  has  to  contend 
against  a  vulgar  idea  that  to  the  fingers  of  him  who  has  the  man- 
agement of  money,  money  somehow  or  other  inevitably  adheres, 
and  the  recipients  of  the  bounty  secretly  insinuate,  or  sometimes 
openly  aver,  that  the  sum  available  for  eleemosynary  purposes  is 
not  what  it  ought  to  be.  Nor  is  he  without  some  official  connection 
with  two  of  the  chief  institutions  in  almost  every  English  village — 
the  Clothing  Club  and  the  Benefit  Society.  As  regards  the  former 
he  acts  as  banker  and  accountant,  enters  in  a  book  all  the  payments 
made  by  different  members  to  the  fund,  and  when  the  season  for 
purchases  arrives,  draws  up  and  signs  the  orders  on  the  tradesmen 
in  the  neighboring  town. 

With  the  Benefit  Society  he  has  less  to  do  in  an  official  capacity. 
These  institutions  may  be  described  as  organizing  the  application 
of  the  co-operative  principle,  in  some  of  its  most  elementary  shapes, 
to  the  simple  conditions  of  rustic  life.  The  plan  of  their  formation 
and  their  operative  method  are  always  the  same.  They  offer  a  pre- 
mium to  thrift,  but  annuities  or  insurance  against  death  do  not  usu- 
ally enter  into  their  scheme.  The  average  sum  paid  by  the  majority 
of  the  members  is  fifteen  shillings  a  year.  "When  disabled  by  illness 
they  receive  from  the  common  fund  nine  shillings  a  week.  In  case 
of  death,  each  member  is  entitled  to  £3  to  £6,  as  the  expenses  of 
his  own,  and  £2  to  £4  in  defrayal  of  those  of  his  wife's  funeral. 
The  society  also  employs  a  medical  man  of  its  own,  who,  in  consid- 


THE    ENGLISH    VILLAGE.  15 

eration  of  a,  certain  small  salary,  usually  about.  £30  a  year,  attends 
to  all  members  without  payment  of  any  further  fee.  In  case  of  per- 
manent disablement  from  sickness  or  age,  the  society  discontinues 
its  relief,  while  there  is  a  regulation,  by  no  means  invariably  ob- 
served, that  relief  shall  be  withheld  entirely  when  the  accident  or 
illness  is  the  result  of  vicious  and  preventiblc  causes — has  coma 
from  drunkenness  or  any  form  of  debauchery.  An  idea  may  be 
gained  of  the  prosperity  of  these  associations  from  the  fact  thai  in 
an  agricultural  village  of  a  midland  county,  with  a  population  of 
500,  a  Benefit  Society,  which  has  been  in  existence  for  forty  years, 
has  at  the  present  moment  a  sum  of  £600  invested  in  the  Three  per 
Cents.  The  treasurer  of  these  societies  is  usually  a  farmer.  The 
clergyman  is  the  chaplain,  who  is  often  consulted  as  to  the  admin- 
istration of  the  fund,  asked  to  arbitrate  in  disputed  cases  of  relief, 
and  occasionally  called  upon  to  advise  as  to  investments.  A  Benefit 
Society  would  be  nothing  without  its  annual  feast;  and  at  the  ban- 
quet— 2s.  6d.  per  head — given  on  this  occasion  it  is  the  natural  thing 
that  the  clergyman  shotdd  preside. 

From  this,  which  is  in  no  way  an  exaggerated  account  of  the 
multifarious  services  that  a  parish  clergyman  is  called  upon  to  ren- 
der to  his  parishioners  in  their  secular  life,  some  notion  may  be 
formed  of  the  far-reaching  consequences  of  the  good  or  evil  which 
he  has  it  in  his  power  to  effect.  In  a  majority  of  English  villages 
'  he  is,  or  may  be,  the  soul  and  center  of  the  social  life  of  the  neigh- 
borhood, the  guarantee  of  its  unity,  the  tribunal  to  which  local 
differences  and  difficulties  are  referred,  and  before  which  they  are 
amicably  settled.  That  he  is  practically  all  or  most  of  this,  is  really 
admitted  by  the  enemies  of  the  Church  and  clergy  of  England,  when 
they  allow  that  the  great  argument  against  the  disestablishment  of 
the  Church  is  the  hopelessness  of  providing  any  thing  like  an  effi- 
cient substitute  for  it  in  country  districts.  Its  strength,  in  fact,  lies 
in  its  parochial  organization,  and  its  direct  connection  with  the  State 
confers  a  dignity  upon  its  ministers,  and  secures  for  them  a  confi- 
dence which  Englishmen  are  slow  to  accord  to  men  who  are  without 
a  public  official  status. 

The  condition  of  those  parishes  in  which  the  resident  clergyman 
does  not  use  the  manifold  influences  at  his  disposal  for  good,  and 
neglects  or  misconceives  the  plain  duties  of  his  position,  is  the  best 
proof  of  the  extent  of  clerical  opportunities.  The  country  parson 
whom  we  have  hitherto  had  in  our  mind's  eye  is  a  conscientious, 
sensible  English  gentleman,  anxious  to  do  his  duty  towards  God  and 
his  neighbor,  possessed  of  no  extreme  views,  and  bent  upon  the 


16  ENGLAND. 

illustration  of  no  subtleties  of  theological  refinement.  He  lives  in 
his  parish  for  ten  months  out  of  the  twelve,  and  he  finds  that  the 
eight  or  nine  -weeks'  change  of  scene  which  he  thus  allows  himself 
renders  him  the  fresher  and  the  more  capable  of  work  when  he 
returns.     But  as  there  are  absentee  squires,  so  there  are  absentee 

\  parsons,  and  these  are  of  two  or  three  types.  There  is  the  clergy- 
man who  has  an  innate  dislike  to  country  life,  who  has  two  or  three 
marriageable  daughters,  as  many  sons  who  require  to  be  educated, 
and  a  fashionable,  valetudinarian  wife.  The  worthy  couple  arrive 
at  the  conclusion  that  they  can  stand  it  no  longer.  The  girls  all 
ought  to  be  out  in  the  great  world:  they  are  pretty  girls,  they  are 
good  girls;  but  what  chance  have  they  of  finding  husbands  in  the 
seclusion  of  Sweet  Auburn  ?  Then  the  boys  ought  to  be  at  school, 
but  schooling  is  so  expensive  !  Moreover,  the  lady  is  more  than 
ever  convinced  that  the  climate  dees  not  suit  her;  and  as  for  her 
husband,  she  has  distinctly  heard  an  ugly  dry  cough,  which  ought 
to  be  looked  after,  proceed  from  his  reverend  chest  in  the  night 
watches.  A  communication  is  addressed  to  the  bishop,  or  a  per- 
sonal interview  is  sought  with  his  lordship,  and  the  rector  and  his 

,  familj*  obtain  leave  of  absence  for  a  year.  At  the  expiration  of  this 
term,  the  application,  backed  by  the  same  cogent  arguments,  is 
renewed,  and  the  leave  of  absence  is  extended.     Meanwhile,  the 

I  curate  in  charge,  installed  at  the  rectory  at  Sweet  Auburn,  is  one  of 
the  many  hack  parsons  who  abound  in  England,  and  who  are  satis- 
fied to  do  the  duty  of  the  place  for  an  indefinite  period,  in  consider- 
ation of  a  small  stipend,  the  whole  of  the  produce  of  the  excellent 
garden,  the  cheapness  of  butcher's  meat,  and  the  salubrity  of  the 
climate.  The  services  are  gone  through  in  a  slovenly,  perfunctory 
manner.  Sunday  after  Sunday  the  congregation  becomes  smaller 
and  smaller.  There  is  very  little  visiting  done  by  the  deputy  incum- 
bent of  this  cure  of  souls  in  the  parish  on  week-days;  and  the  ten- 
dency of  every  thing  is  toward  a  relapse  into  primitive  paganism. 
So  it  goes  on  from  year  to  year.  One  morning  the  news  comes 
that  the  absentee  rector  has  died  at  Bath  or  Cheltenham.  In  course 
of  time  his  successor  is  appointed — an  enthusiastic,  devout,  earnest 
man.  Perhaps  it  is  his  first  experience.  He  had  expected  to  find 
Sweet  Auburn  all  that  Goldsmith  had  described  it.  He  had  looked 
for  a  cordial  reception  from  clean,  smiling,  virtuous  villagers,  and 
hearty,  God-fearing  farmers.  Instead,  he  finds  that  his  lot  is  cast 
in  an  atmosphere  of  want  and  sin.  The  villagers  are  ill-fed,  ill-clad 
men  and  women,  who  regard  the  parson  as  their  natural  enemy; 
the  farmers  whom  his  fond  imagination  had  pictured  are  grumbling 


THE    ENGLISH    VILLAGE.  17 

malcontents,  the  votaries  of  a  crass,  unintelligent   disbelief,  who 

seldom  enter  church,  and  who  are  wholly  in  ai  fco  the  cultiva- 

tion of  strictness  and  right.     The  sanitary  condition  of  the  pi. ice  is 

detestable,  and  the  new  parson  is  aghast  at  the  state  of  things  which 
confronts  him.  lie  had  dreamed  of  Paradise,  and  here  are  the 
squalor,  filth,  and  vice  of  Seven  Dials. 

This  is  an  extreme  case,  but  it  is  far  from  being  the  only  instance 
which  might  be  given  of  parochial  neglect  at  the  hands  of  the  re- 
sponsible clergyman.  Sloughton-in-the-Marsh  is  a  college  living, 
it  is  not,  indeed,  likely  to  remain  so  much  longer,  for  the  master 
and  fellows  of  the  society  on  whose  patronage  Sloughton  is  are  anx- 
ious to  sell  it  and  other  benefices,  in  order  that  they  may  have  in- 
creased funds  at  their  disposal  for  educational  purposes,  and  for  the 
establishment  of  fresh  university  centers  throughout  England.  For 
a  long  succession  of  years  the  spiritual  wants  of  Sloughton  have 
been  ministered  to  by  distinguished  members  of  the  college  to  which 
the  living  belongs,  who  have  either  wearied  of  the  life  of  the  uni- 
versity, or  who  have  received  the  benefice  as  the  reward  of  their 
educational  efforts  elsewhere.  At  the  present  moment  the  rector  of 
Sloughton  may  be  a  representative  of  any  one  of  several  distinct 
divisions  of  divines.  He  is,  perhaps,  an  ecclesiastical  dignitary  of 
some  standing — a  cathedral  canon  and  eminent  preacher  at  White- 
hall. He  is  a  bachelor,  a  member  of  the  Athenseum  Club,  has  his 
pied-a  terre  in  London,  possibly  keeps  on  some  rooms  at  Oxford,  and 
when  he  is  at  Sloughton,  values  it  chiefly  on  account  of  the  oppor- 
tunities of  learned  leisure  which  it  offers.  In  his  absence  there  are 
a  couple  of  curates  who  may  indeed  be  blameless,  but  who,  not  hav- 
ing the  authority,  cannot  exhibit  the  efficiency  of  their  chief.  The 
accomplished  rector,  when  he  is  there,  always  preaches  once  on  a 
Sunday,  his  sermon  being  about  as  intelligible  to  his  flock  as  an  ex- 
tract from  Butler's  "Analogy,"  or  the  late  Dean  Hansel's  "Bampton 
'Lectures";  and,  being  a  kind-hearted  as  well  as  a  liberal  man,  visits 
his  parishioners,  and  makes  them  presents  of  money. 

Or  let  it  be  supposed  that  the  rector  of  Sloughton  is  in  no  sense 
justly  open  to  the  imputation  of  absenteeism.  He  lives  in  his  rec- 
tory for  nine  months  out  of  the  twelve,  and,  when  there,  is  closely 
and  constantly  employed.  The  only  thing  is  that  his  occupations, 
which  are  sufficiently  exacting,  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
his  parishioners.  The  fact  is,  he  takes  pupils,  and  edits  school  and 
college  classics.  He  is  a  man  of  blameless  life,  of  great  natural 
kindness,  of  large  and  liberal  culture.  But  he  is  a  born  school- 
master or  professor.  He  would  gladly  dedicate  his  existence  to 
2 


18  ENGLAND. 

researches  into  the  genitive  case  at  Heidelberg,  or  he  might  be 
trusted  to  do  all  that  scholarship  and  industry  could  do  towards 
improving  the  standard  of  Latin  composition  at  a  school.  At 
Sloughton  he  does  to  its  fullest  extent  his  duty  by  his  pupils  and 
then  parents.  It  would  shock  him  infinitely  to  be  told  that  he 
failed  to  do  it  by  his  parishioners.  He  dislikes  death-beds,  it  is 
true.  Surrounded  by  young  people,  he  is  not  quite  clear  that  he 
is  justified  in  entering  sick-rooms  when  there  is  any  suspicion  of 
infectious  disease.  Yet  he  has  attended  several  death-beds  in  the 
course  of  the  last  two  years,  and  he  is  not  aware  that  in  any  case 
where  one  of  his  parishioners  has  been  stretched  on  a  bed  of  sick- 
ness or  pain  he  has  failed  to  attend  when  summoned,  or  to  dispatch 
a  curate.  As  regards  his  more  strictly  ecclesiastical  duties,  the  ser- 
vices in  his  church  are  performed  with  scrupulous  neatness  and 
care.  His  sermons  are  compact,  clear,  scholar-like  little  essays,  ca- 
pable of  being  understood  by  the  most  untutored  intellect,  on  popu- 
lar religion  and  morality.  It  is,  in  fact,  impossible  justly  to  accuse 
him  of  anjr  specific  dereliction  of  his  duty;  and  yet  the  organization 
of  his  parish  is  far  from  complete.  Still,  the  machine  is  kept  in  ope- 
ration— there  is  no  break-down;  there  may  be  apathy  and  indiffer- 
ence on  many  points  on  which  it  could  be  wished  that  a  stronger 
and  livelier  interest  existed;  but  there  is  no  oj)en  feud  between  par- 
son and  people,  such  as  there  is  quite  sure  to  be  when  the  former 
feels  himself  compelled,  for  conscience'  sake,  to  run  athwart  the 
popular  will.  It  may  be  matter  of  satisfaction  that  the  race  of 
orthodox  high  and  dry  clerics  are  disappearing  from  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  that  the  clergyman  who  hunts  three  days  a  week  is  be- 
coming an  anachronism.  But  it  is  probable  that  none  of  these  was 
the  instrument  of  as  much  mischief,  as  much  alienation  from  relig- 
ion itself,  as  the  country  parson  who  believes  that  it  is  his  sacred 
duty  violently  to  break  with  the  ecclesiastical  traditions  of  his  par- 
ish— to  introduce  the  representation  of  a  high  Anglican  ritual,  if 
the  antecedents  of  the  place  have  been  Protestant  and  Evangelical; 
or  to  root  out  the  last  traces  of  Anglicanism  Avith  iconoclastic  fervor 
and  indignation,  if  his  predecessor  has  belonged  to  the  school  of 
Keble  and  Pusey.  Common  sense  and  infinite  tolerance  are  as  in- 
dispensable in  the  successful  clergyman  as  devotion  to  duty,  and  they 
are  virtues  that  were  perhaps  more  uniformly  forthcoming  among 
the  working  parsons  of  the  old  school  than  the  self-sacrificing  but 
indiscreetly  zealous  and  aggressive  apostles  of  the  new. 

But  it  will  be  contended  by  many  persons  that  the  view  which  has 
here  been  presented  of  the  country  parson  is  an  illusion  born  of  weak 


THE    ENGLISH    VILLAGE.  19 

partiality  for  the  Establishment,  and  that  even  the  instances  of  by 
•  no  means  model  parsons  which  have  been  given  here  are  far  from 
being  sufficiently  unfavorable  to  be  frequently  true.  Some  cler- 
gymen in  rural  England,  it  will  be  said,  are  drunken;  others  are 
I  in  a  chronic  state  of  insolvency;  many  are  ignorant,  unlettered — 
not  merely  devoid  of  knowledge,  but  devoid  of  the  wish  to  acquire 
knowledge.  Many,  it  may  be  admitted,  are  indifferent,  careless, 
worldly,  putting  on  piety  with  their  surplices,  and  keeping  their 
conscience  in  their  cassocks.  By  some  champions  of  disestablish- 
ment and  disendowment  it  is  admitted  that  the  chief  obstacle  in 
the  way  of  disestablishment  is  the  provision  of  an  adequate  sub- 
/  stitute  for  the  parochial  system  of  the  Church  of  England  in  rural 
districts.  By  others  it  is  boldly  declared  that  the  parson  is  the 
reverse  of  a  beneficent  institution,  that  he  is  not  the  connecting 
link  between  social  extremes,  that  he  never  takes  the  edge  off  class 
quarrels,  that  he  does  not  act  and  cannot  act,  by  his  influence 
with  the  employer,  as  an  advanced  guard  of  the  interests  of  the  em- 
ployed. From  this  point  of  view,  the  parson  represents  in  matters 
spiritual  the  principle  of  superstition,  and  in  matters  temporal 
the  principles  of  tyranny  and  greed.  So  far  from  being  a  lavish 
dispenser  of  his  own  charity,  or  a  just  dispenser  of  the  charity  of 
others,  the  country  clergyman  systematically  diverts  from  its  prop- 
er object  to  his  own  pocket  the  bounty  bequeathed  by  the  dead  to 
the  living.  As  he  is  a  grievous  impediment  in  the  way  of  their 
worldly  welfare,  so,  according  to  this  view,  has  he  been  in  the 
past,  and  is  still  in  the  present,  a  serious,  if  not  fatal,  hindrance  to 
the  secular  enlightenment  of  the  poor.  He  is,  in  fact,  one  of  an 
odious  trio — of  which  the  two  other  members  are  the  farmer  and 
the  landlord — leagued  against  the  working  classes,  and  pledged  to 
oppose  whatever  may  conduce  to  their  welfare.  It  will  help  you 
nothing,  in  arguing  with  persons  who  think  in  this  way,  to  adduce 
instances  within  your  own  knowledge  in  which  such  imputations 
upon  the  clergy  are  emphatically  untrue.  If  you  mention  names, 
you  will  sinrply  be  told  that  these  are  exceptions.  If  you  draw 
attention  to  cases  in  which  clergymen  are  doing  battle  for  the  peo- 
ple with  the  great  landlords,  not  only  when  there  has  been  an  edu- 
cational issue  concerned,  but  when  such  purely  material  issues  are 
at  stake  as  the  right  of  way,  or  the  right  of  cutting  turf,  you  are 
at  once  overwhelmed  with  an  entire  catalogue  of  alleged  contra- 
dictory experiences.  The  parson,  as  depicted  for  the  benefit  of  the 
agricultural  laborer  by  his  champions,  is  one  half  a  designing 
mystery-man,  and  the  other  half  a  smooth-speeched  bandit.     He 


20  ENGLAND. 

has  entered  into  a  secret  compact  with  the  landlord  and  tenant  of 
the  soil  that  he  will  help  them  to  grind  the  peasant  to  impotence, 
and  to  do  his  utmost  to  prevent  him  from  ever  learning'  to  rise  to 
the  majesty  of  manhood,  or  the  active  enjoyment  of  full  political 
rights. 

To  help  him  in  this  sinister  purpose,  he  has  clothed  himself  with 
superstitious  attributes,  and  he  invokes  a  supernatural  sanction.  If 
he  has  seemed  actively  to  contribute  to  the  advancement  of  educa- 
tion in  the  days  when  no  Education  Act  existed,  it  has  merely  been 
that,  by  establishing  an  educational  monopoly,  he  might  retard  and 
hinder  a  degraded  peasantry  in  their  struggles  towards  enlighten- 
ment. The  facts  of  English  history  he  has  perverted  to  his  own 
sectarian  purpose ;  the  three  "  R's  "  themselves  he  has,  in  some  way 
or  other,  made  the  vehicles  of  his  own  reactionary  sacerdotalism. 
The  one  object  of  his  life  is  to  keep  the  laborers  and  their  families 
in  a  state  of  ignorance  and  subjection.  Knowledge  is  power;  is  it 
conceivable,  therefore,  that  he  should  have  been  the  disinterested 
friend  of  education?  To  taste  of  privilege,  or  freely  to  enjoy  an 
undoubted  right,  begets  the  desire  to  taste  further  and  enjoy  more; 
how,  therefore,  can  it  be  doubted  that  the  parson,  in  league  wit  b 
the  proprietor,  is  always  ready  to  stop  up  field  j)aths,  and  to  enclose 
fresh  acres  of  common  land  ? 

One  of  the  questions  periodically  addressed  by  the  Agricultural 
Laborers'  Union  is,  "  How  many  charities  are  there  in  your  parish, 
and  do  the  clergy  distribute  them  among  those  who  do  not  v;o  to 
church,  equally  with  those  who  do?"  And  again,  "Don't  you  think 
the  clergy  uphold  bad  laws  made  by  landlords,  which  are  an  un- 
mitigated system  of  robbery?"*  These  inquiries  are  apparently 
addressed  not  so  much  for  the  purpose  of  eliciting  information  as 
of  serving  as  texts  for  inflammatory  indictments  against  the  clergy- 
man. The  refrain  of  all  is  the  same.  The  moral  pointed  never 
varies — that  the  agricultural  poor  cannot  come  by  their  own  till  the 
black  terror  has  been  exorcised.  The  clergyman,  so  his  rural  pa- 
rishioners are  told,  is  the  self-seeking  jackal  of  station  and  wealth. 
He  combines  with  the  lawyer  to  plunder  the  poor  of  the  larger  part 
of  those  charities  which  have  been  left  for  the  poor  man's  enjoy- 
ment. He  combines  with  the  parish  doctor — as  slavish  an  instru- 
ment of  territorial  despotism,  as  himself — to  drive  the  laborer  into 
pauperism,  by  a  host  of  base  devices.     He  understands,  although 

*  These  questions  are  taken  verbatim  from  a  long  list  addressed  by  a  promi- 
nent member  of  the  Union,  Mr.  George  Mitchell,  to  the  rural  laborers  of  Eng- 
land, on  the  eve  of  an  agricultural  demonstration  near  Yeovil,  on  Whit  Monday. 


THE    ENGLISH    VILLAGE.  21 

his  helpless  victims  often  do  not,  that  any  relief  from  the  rates  con- 
stitutes a  political  disqualification.  Therefore  he  is  perpetually 
contriving  that  the  parish  doctor  should  attend  the  wife  or  child 
of  the  peasant,  providing  such  medicines  as  may  be  wanted  at  the 
parish  expense.  Nothing  which  can  be  said  with  the  object  of  show- 
ing that  neither  in  town  nor  in  country  is  the  parson  any  thing  but 
the  poor  man's  enemy  is  left  unsaid. 

The  result  of  the  ideas  which  are  thus  diffused  by  printed  broad- 
sheets and  itinerant  spouters  has  still  to  be  seen.  It  is  even  admit- 
ted by  the  chief  agitators  themselves,  who,  arguing  from  certain 
periods  of  the  Church's  history  and  certain  excesses  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical temperament,  can  bring  forward  some  colorable  justification 
for  their  invective,  that  the  Established  Church  cannot  be  success- 
fully attacked  before  the  working  classes  have  been  thoroughly  edu- 
cated. When  the  Education  Acts  of  1870  and  1S7G,  supjjlcinented 
by  a  variety  of  educational  influences  not  less  valuable  than  legisla- 
tion itself,  have  done  their  work,  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  the 
emancipation  of  the  people  from  the  fetters  of  priestcraft  fairly  be- 
gin. It  is  further  allowed  that  the  Church  of  England  has,  and  will 
continue  to  have,  a  stronger  claim  for  consideration  in  country  dis- 
tricts than  in  towns.  And  this  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  self-improvement,  which  is  the  most  certain  enemy 
of  the  Established  Church,  is  more  easily  to  be  found  in  towns. 
For  three  centuries  the  Church  of  England  has  been  on  its  trial. 
That  probationary  period  has  not  yet  expired,  nor  can  it  ever  expire. 
The  Established  Church  will  be  judged  by  its  fruits,  and  directly  the 
quality  of  its  harvests  is  justly  open  to  general  suspicion,  directly  it 
is  felt  that  its  agency  can  with  advantage  be  superseded  by  any 
other,  directly  this  substitute  assumes  a  tangible  shape,  and  admits 
of  clear  definition,  the  attack  upon  it  will  enter  on  a  new  phase.  It 
is  only  the  earlier  operations  of  the  assault  which  are  now  being 
felt;  it  is  the  menace,  not  the  decree,  of  a  change  which  has  been 
pronounced.  "Whether  the  attack  will  be  successful,  and  the  great 
experiment  of  a  State  Church  will  be  openly  declared  a  failure,  de- 
pends not  so  much  upon  the  tactics  of  the  party  of  aggression  i  a 
upon  the  policy  of  the  officers  employed  in  the  defense.  The  future 
of  the  Church  of  England,  in  town  and  country  alike,  is  mainly  in 
the  hands,  not  of  its  enemies,  but  of  its  clergy.  If  the  days  of 
priestcraft  have  gone  by,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  English  peo- 
ple are  at  all  anxious  to  dispense  with  the  organized  assistance  of  a 
national  clergy,  such  as  that  clergy  has  here  been  described. 

There  are  two  chief  difficulties  by  which  the  country  parson 


22  ENGLAND. 

sometimes  complains  that  his  path  is  beset.  Of  these  one  consists 
of  the  farmers,  the  other  of  the  Dissenters  of  his  parish.  Both 
classes  are  undeniably  distinct  powers  in  most  English  villages. 
Their  attitude  towards  the  parson  may  be  one  of  active  opj)osition, 
or  passive  neutrality,  or  good-will  and  energetic  assistance.  Which 
of  these  it  is  to  be  may  sometimes  depend  upon  causes  beyond  the 
clergyman's  control,  but  is  more  frequently  regulated  by  the  policy  he 
may  himself  pursue,  and  the  amount  of  discretion  which  he  may  dis- 
play. There  is  as  much  variety  among  the  farmers  of  rural  England 
as  among  any  other  section  of  the  population.  They  differ  greatly 
even  in  closely  adjacent  parishes,  and  the  interval  of  a  mile  often 
separates  a  social  stratum  that  is  wholly  satisfactory,  from  one  which 
is  thoroughly  bad.  But  taking  them  in  a  mass,  the  tenant  agricul- 
turists of  England  have  displayed  marked  and  rapid  improvement 
in  the  course  of  the  last  five-and-twenty  years.  The  small  British 
farmer  of  the  old  type,  crass,  ignorant,  wrong-headed,  stingy,  heavy 
with  beer,  or  steeped  in  spirits,  superior  only  to  his  laborers  in  hav- 
ing more  money  to  command  the  opportunities  of  self-indulgence, 
is  gradually  disapp earing.  He  is  being  replaced  by  a  successor  of  a 
better  type,  who  reads  and  thinks  for  himself,  who  does  not  believe 
that  education  is  necessarily  a  bad  thing,  who  perceives  that  to  sup- 
plement wages  by  the  wanton  increase  of  the  poor-rate  is  a  short- 
sighted as  well  as  generally  mischievous  policy,  and  is  no  longer 
blindly  opposed  to  contributing  a  reasonable  measure  of  assistance 
to  the  village  school.  He  is  thus  the  parson's  friend  rather  than  his 
uncompromising  foe,  and  in  villages  where  specimens  of  the  older 
and  less  honored  variety  of  the  British  farmer  still  survive,  it  will 
usually  be  discovered  that  the  public  opinion  of  his  class  is  against 
him. 

As  the  farmer's  sons  are  already  in  training  to  surpass  the  vir- 
tues of  their  sires,  so  his  daughters  are  rapidly  rising  to  the  higher 
levels  of  modern  enlightenment.  Thev  have  been  well  educated, 
and  their  education  was  finished  at  a  carefully  selected  boarding- 
school.  If  there  is  any  thing  to  criticise  in  their  attainments,  it  is, 
perhaps,  that  they  might  have  received  a  little  more  instruction  in 
the  plain  duties  of  the  housewife.  But  this  will  come  with  experi- 
ence, and  meanwhile,  the  influence  which  they  exercise  at  home, 
with  then-  taste  for  music,  books,  and  flowers,  is  a  genuinely  hu- 
manizing agency.  They  have  the  ordinary  accomplishments  of  ladies, 
and  they  have  manners  which  are  quite  up  to  the  ordinary  drawing- 
room  standard.  They  represent,  in  brief,  a  new  and  a  better  force 
in  the  economy  of  rural  England,  and  one  which  is  probably  des- 


THE    ENGLISH    VILLAGE.  23 

tined  to  do  quite  as  much  good  in  its  way  as  school  boards  and 
school  attendance  committees. 

With  reference  to  Dissenters,  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  be- 
/  tween  Nonconformity  as  it  exists  in  rural  districts,  and  as  it  is  in 
towns.  In  the  latter,  it  usually  assumes  more  or  less  of  a  political 
complexion,  and  is  often  aggressively  hostile  to  the  State  Church 
as  an  institution  and  to  the  clergymen  who  are  its  officers.  In  the 
former,  it  is  seldom  tinged  with  political  partisanship  of  any  hind, 
though  its  hold  upon  the  rural  population,  in  some  parts  of  England, 
is  exceedingly  intense.  The  influence  of  Wesley  and  Whitfield  sur- 
vive to  this  day.  In  all  those  counties  where  John  Wesley  preached, 
i  notably  in  Cornwall,  his  tradition  remains,  and,  co-operating  with 
the  emotional  Celtic  temperament,  continues  to  be  the  inspiring  ele- 
ment of  a  deeply  cherished  popular  creed.  Again,  in  the  north  of 
England,  Dissent  is  organized  with  great  compactness  and  power 
among  the  manufacturing  classes.  But  with  these  exceptions,  it 
will  generally  be  found  in  rural  districts  that  families  have  deserted 
the  church  for  chapel  from  a  real  or  imaginary  failure  on  the  part 
of  the  clergyman  to  supply  their  spiritual  wants,  from  some  lamen- 
table deficiency  of  ecclesiastical  tact,  or  from  some  exceptional  com- 
bination of  personal  causes.  Farmers  and  laborers  alike,  in  rural 
districts,  are  generally  prepared  to  give  their  preference  to  the 
church  over  the  chapel.  In  cases  of  birth,  marriage,  and  death, 
and  in  all  the  solemn  crises  of  life,  it  is  to  the  ministrations  of  the 
church  that  they  naturally  turn.  Yet  calling  themselves  Church- 
men, they  hold  that  they  are  free  to  attend  chapel,  if  the  teaching 
'  in  the  church  seems  to  them  false  or  profitless.  Their  social  rela- 
tions frequently  tend  to  confirm  this  view.  Connected  by  blood  or 
marriage  with  purely  Dissenting  families,  they  share  many  of  the 
religious  prejudices  and  theological  sentiments  of  their  kinsfolk. 
When  kindness,  courtesy,  judgment,  and  a  discreet  tolerance  in  the 
inculcation  of  theological  dogmas  are  forthcoming,  when  the  clergy- 
man disarms  Dissent  by  showing  that  he  neither  fears,  hates,  nor 
suspects  it,  when  he  addresses  his  congregation  on  subjects  of  prac- 
tical interest,  remembering  that  even  doctrines  have  then*  practical 
side,  in  language  which  they  can  all  understand,  when  he  does  not 
too  emphatically  accentuate  denominational  differences;  then  he 
will  in  all  probability,  unless  they  happen  to  be  subject  to  the  influ- 
ence of  some  very  wrong-headed  leaders,  not  merely  have  no  trouble 
with  his  Dissenters,  but  find  them  amongst  the  most  regular  attend- 
ants at  his  church. 

It  must  always  be  remembered  that  English  religion — especially 


24.  ENGLAND. 

in  rural  districts — owes  a  great  debt  to  the  beneficent  agencies  of 
Nonconformity  in  past  times.  When,  during  the  first  thirty  years 
of  the  present  century,  the  activity  and  efficiency  of  the  Church  of 
England  were  at  their  lowest  ebb  in  country  districts,  Dissent  was 
in  many  places  the  only  influence  that  preserved  the  vital  spark  of 
Christianity.  The  spirit  which  now  animates  the  clerg}Tiien  of  the 
Church  of  England  as  a  body  may  have  rendered  the  services  of 
Dissent  superfluous.  The  practical  experiences  of  a  great  number 
of  English  clergymen  would  indorse  this  view.  The  rector  of  a 
parish,  in  one  of  the  most  Dissenting  districts  of  the  West  of  Eng- 
land, remarked  not  long  ago  to  a  woman,  at  whose  cottage  he  had 
called,  that  he  was  afraid  she  neglected  religion,  since  he  had  never 
seen  her  at  church.  She  immediately  replied,  that  she  "  always 
went  to  chapel."  "  I  am  delighted,"  he  quickly  and  sagaciously  re- 
joined, "to  hear  it:  I  want  you  to  go  somewhere  to  worship  God. 
Pray,  be  sure  you  keep  your  chapel  regularly."  Repeating  his  visit 
after  an  interval  of  about  three  months,  he  remarked :  "  I  hope  you 
have  been  regularly  to  chapel  since  I  was  last  here ? "  "I  have 
never,"  was  the  answer,  "  entered  chapel  since."  "  I  am  sorry," 
said  the  clergyman,  "to  hear  it;  why  have  you  not  done  so?" 
"  Have  you  not,"  the  woman  with  evident  surprise  asked,  "  seen  me  ? 
I  have  been  at  church  eATery  Sunday  since  you  called  last.  I  thought 
that  as  you  did  not  '  run  out  against '  the  chaj>el-goers,  I  should  like 
to  hear  you."  This  is  a  true  story,  and  it  points  a  moral  which  is 
at  least  a  suggestive  one.  The  influences  of  Dissent  alone  never  yet 
produced  the  disruption  of  a  village  and  the  desertion  of  a  church. 
In  most  instances,  where  these  things  have  happened,  it  will  be 
found  that  it  is  the  tactics  adopted  by  the  representatives  and  cham- 
pions of  the  Church  which  have  organized  Dissenters  into  a  power- 
ful offensive  body,  and  have  ranged  them  in  an  implacably  hostile 
camp. 


CHAPTER    III. 

GREAT    LANDLORDS,    AND    ESTATE    MANAGEMENT. 

The  Popular  Conception  of  the  Life  of  a  Territorial  Aristocracy  inaccurate — 
Generally  Absorbing  Character  of  the  Duties  attending  Management  of 
Property — The  Daily  Life  of  an  English  Noble  and  Landlord — General 
Principles  of  Administration  of  Large  Properties — The  Estates  of  the  Dukes 
of  Westminster  and  Northumberland — The  Alnwick  Property — From  New- 
castle to  Tynemouth — Farmers  on  the  Alnwick  Property,  their  Management 
and  Supervision — Management  of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  Property — 
Management  of  the  Duke  of  Cleveland's — Review  of  Feahires  chiefly  prom- 
inent in  English  Estate  Management  generally — The  Ecclesiastical  Com- 
missioners' Estates — The  Management  of  Smaller  Properties. 

IT  is  time  to  turn  from  the  reflection  and  model  of  the  ecclesiastical 
power,  as  it  may  be  seen  in  the  typical  English  village,  to  the 

.  department  of  purely  civil  and  secular  authority.  "We  have  seen  the 
parson  combining  with  his  sacred  calling  not  a  few  temporal  attri- 
butes; let  us  now  look  at  that  portion  of  the  machinery  of  English 
life  which  is  temporal  exclusively,  and  at  the  individuals,  of  varying 
grades  of  dignity,  who  happen  to  be  intrusted  with  its  exercise.  If 
there  is  one  lesson  which  it  seems  reasonable  that  the  wealthier 
members  of  the  great  hereditary  aristocracy  of  England  should 
learn  from  the  complex  and  unending  duties  of  their  station,  it  is 
that,  however  extensive  and  absolute  their  authority,  they  can  never 

I  escape  the  cares  and  responsibilities  of  trusteeship.  The  popular 
notion  of  their  existence  and  its  duties  is  not  unlike  the  childish 
notion  of  the  life  of  the  sovereign — the  successful  pursuit  of  pleas- 
ure in  all  its  varied  forms  by  easy  and  thornless  paths.  The  year 
of  the  titled  nobility  of  the  realm  is  thought  to  divide  itself  into  two 
parts,  of  which  one  is  the  London  season.     Fine  equipages;  great 

f  entertainments ;  public  banquets  ;  private  dinners ;  the  clubs  ;  the 
park ;  casual  strolls  to  the  House  of  Lords  twice  or  thrice  a  week — 
these  to  the  multitude  are  the  chief  features  in  the  existence  of  our 
titular  aristocracy  between  the  months  of  February  and  August. 
They  are  varied  by  many  visits  for  purposes  of  sport  or  pleasure  to 


r 


26  ENGLAND. 

country  palaces  and  mansions,  to  foreign  capitals,  to  continental 
lakes.  Rather  more  than  half  the  year  is  devoted  entirely  to  the 
race  after  excitement,  elsewhere  than  in  the  fashionable  quarters  of 
the  metropolis.  The  London  season  comes  to  an  end,  and  there  is 
the  departure  for  the  grouse  moors  of  the  North.  The  shutters  are 
put  up  in  the  great  houses  of  Belgravia  and  Marfan-,  because  the 
noble  and  fashionable  proprietors  have  gone  off  to  Homburg,  are 
taking  the  waters  at  Vichy,  or  are  circumnavigating  the  globe  in  the 
floating  palaces  known  as  yachts.  The  popular  fancy  may  fill  in  the 
picture  as  it  will,  but  the  tints  chosen  are  sure  to  be  those  of  enjoy- 
ment, luxury,  and  an  absence  of  all  worldly  cares. 

Those  who  entertain  less  conventional  notions,  and  have  had 
opportunities  of  closer  observation,  would  suggest  a  few  alterations 
both  in  outline  and  detail.  They  know  that  even  the  highest  rank 
has  its  duties  and  cares,  that  occupation  is  eagerly  sought  by  those 
who  could  well  afford  to  dispense  with  it,  and  that  pure  idleness  is 
not  necessarily  the  highest  bliss  to  the  heir  of  a  hundred  earls. 
They  point  to  the  fact  that  even  in  the  absence  of  political  ambition, 
other  motive  of  disquiet  and  unrest  agitate  the  most  unquestionably 
patrician  breasts.  They  notice  how  the  proprietors  of  immense  es- 
tates and  princely  revenues  plunge  into  occupations,  with  as  fixed  a 
resolve  to  succeed  as  if  their  future  livelihood  depended  on  their 
success.  In  spite  of  the  effect  of  early  education,  notwithstanding 
the  enervating  and  sometimes  positively  noxious  influences  of  the  at- 
mosphere in  which  their  boyhood  and  youth  have  been  passed — an 
atmosphere  of  adulation,  indulgence,  deference,  servile  and  senseless 
homage — they  see  the  inheritors  of  fabulous  wealth  sternly  buckling 
on  then-  armor,  and  eager  to  do  battle  with  the  rough  world. 
"When  it  is  remembered  that  there  is  no  lot  so  trying  in  this  earth 
as  that  of  the  youth  of  one  who  is,  or  who  is  destined  in  the  fullness 
of  time  to  be,  a  great  English  peer,  the  wonder  is  not  that  some 
proportion  of  English  peers  have  no  other  ideal  than  one  of  gratifi- 
cation, but  that  so  many  of  them  set  to  the  nobility  of  every  other 
European  country  an  example  of  energetic  devotion  to  public  or 
private  duty,  j 

But  it  is  not  on  the  political  position  and  opportunities  of  our 
hereditary  aristocracy  that  stress  will  now  be  laid.  Let  us  look  at 
their  functions  and  engagements  as  the  lords  of  the  soil.  A  consid- 
erable landowner  may  find  enough  to  occupy  every  moment  of  his 
time  in  the  management  of  his  private  affairs  and  in  his  social  duties. 
A  country  gentleman  who  shoots  a  little,  hunts  a  little,  looks  after 
his  property  personally,  is  bent  on  improving  it,  and  only  calls  in 


GREAT  LANDLORDS,    AND  ESTATE   MANAGEMENT.        27 

the  services  of  a  bailiff  to  supplement  his  own  defective  experience, 
will  in  reality  find  that  he  has  as  few  spare  minutes  as  a  city  clerk. 
The  higher  the  personage  is  in  the  social  scale,  the  more  anxious 
and  laborious  the  life.  It  is  now  beginning  to  be  known  that  many 
hours  are  daily  devoted  by  Her  Majesty  to  the  consideration  of 
State  documents,  and  the  weighing  of  Ministerial  policy.  The 
Queen's  more  illustrious  subjects  can  as  little  afford  to  be  idle  as  the 
Queen  herself.  The  gTeat  landlords  of  England  are  really  the  rulers 
of  principalities.  They  are  at  the  head  of  not  one  department,  but 
of  three  or  four  different  departments  of  State.  They  are  charged 
with  the  administration  of  a  miniature  empire,  which  often  embraces 
a  number  of  provinces,  whose  conditions,  resources,  and  necessities 
differ  as  much  as  if  they  were  separate  kingdoms. 

"What  is  the  daily  life  of  a  territorial  potentate  such  as  this,  even 
in  London,  when  the  season  is  at  its  height?  As  surely  as  ten 
o'clock  comes  each  morning  he  will  seek  his  library,  where  his  cor- 
respondence is  spread  on  a  table  for  his  perusal.  The  letters  are 
written  by  all  kinds  of  persons,  and  with  all  kinds  of  objects.  Some 
are  from  tenants  on  his  country  estates,  who  want  repairs  done,  or 
apply  for  permission  to  make  an  alteration  in  their  holdings;  others 
are  from  bailiffs  and  stewards,  and  embody  reports  of  their  period- 
ical tours  of  inspection.  Others  are  mere  begging  letters  from  a 
legion  of  mendicant  correspondents.  There  is  not  one  of  these  to 
which  our  great  man  will  not  give  his  personal  consideration.  On 
the  back  or  margin  of  each  he  will  note  down  the  nature  of  the 
reply  to  be  sent,  and  when  he  has  thus  gone  through  the  entire 
number,  he  confers  with  his  secretary. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  dispose  of  the  applications  from  tenants, 
large  or  small.  In  some  cases  they  are  obviously  admissible,  in  a 
few  they  are  transparently  the  reverse,  in  others  they  are  referred 
to  an  agent  who  is  on  the  spot.  As  regards  the  requests  which  the 
post  has  brought  "with  it  that  his  Grace  will  grant  of  his  generosity 
a  sum  for  the  adornment  of  a  church  or  the  building  of  a  school, 
some  of  these  clearly  he  outside  the  area  of  his  legitimate  benefi- 
cence. The  decision  on  some  is  postponed,  and  on  some  is  imme-  "f- 
diately  given  in  the  affirmative.  It  is  different  with  the  purely 
eleemosynary  applications.  Here  every  entreaty  for  ahns  is  prob- 
ably referred  to  the  Charity  Organization  Society,  but  at  the  same 
time  an  acknowledgment  of  these  letters  is  sent  by  return  of  post 
to  the  whole  host  of  needy  correspondents.  But  nothing  is  given 
till  the  Society  has  reported.  If  that  report  is  favorable,  if  the  case 
is  deserving,  a  sum  is  sent  to  the  Society,  or  the  secretary  of  one  of 


28  ENGLAND. 

its  local  branches,  to  be  distributed  in  its  full  amount  at  once,  or  in 
installments  to  be  spread  over  a  certain  number  of  weeks.  Let  it 
be  further  supposed  that  our  great  man  is  not  only  a  great  land- 
owner in  the  country,  but  that  he  is  the  possessor  of  priceless  acres, 
on  which  have  been  built  tine  mansions,  in  London.  In  this  case 
he  has,  of  course,  a  central  estate  office,  in  which  a  staff  of  agents 
and  their  clerks  are  employed.  Once  a  week  a  board  meeting  is 
held,  at  which  the  landlord  hears  a  full  account  of  all  that  is  being 
done,  or  that  it  is  in  contemplation  to  do,  by  the  lessees  of  his  estate. 
Documents  are  examined— opinions  of  experts  are  given.  The  sur- 
veyor controverts  or  supports  the  desirability  of  a  concession;  the 
architect  reports  favorably  or  unfavorably  as  to  the  outline  of  a 
house.  Attendance  at  these  meetings  is  in  itself  a  kind  of  profes- 
sional education.  The  great  man  takes  his  place  in  his  council 
chamber,  and  at  his  side  is  the  son  who  will  one  day  rule  in  his 
stead,  and  who  is  being  thus  early  trained  in  the  management  of 
affairs. 

The  administration  of  every  department  of  the  property  is  con- 
ducted upon  the  same  precise  principles.  Routine  is  followed  as 
closely  in  aU  its  method  and  punctuality  as  in  a  Government  office 
or  a  model  commercial  business.  ~~j  Take  the  single  question  of  ac- 
counts, whether  they  come  under'the  head  of  household  or  estate 
expenditure.  The  turn-over — to  employ  a  mercantile  metaphor — 
is  tens  of  thousands  in  the  year;  but  there  is  as  little  chance  of  a 
halfpenny  being  unaccounted  for  when  the  Christmas  quarter  ex- 
pires, as  there  is  of  the  ledgers  of  Coutts'  ba]ik  being  sixpence 
wrong  on  the  morning  of  any  given  first  of  January.  The  accounts 
of  the  agents  on  the  estates  in  the  north  of  England,  the  south  of 
England,  and  in  London  itself,  are  forwarded  at  fixed  intervals,  and 
are  duly  audited  by.  the  gentleman  who  is  personally  attached  to, 
and  who  is  always  in  immediate  attendance  on,  the  great  man,  with 
clerks  and  deputy  agents  at  his  disposal.  The  books  are  kept  with 
the  exactness  of  the  books  of  a  life  assurance  office.  As  it  is  known 
what  the  expenditure  upon  the  property  ought  to  be,  so  also  do  the 
means  exist  which  render  it  possible  to  check  with  infallible  accu- 
racy the  expenditure  of  the  household.  The  steward  forwards  his 
statement  of  money  actually  expended — or,  rather,  of  bills  incurred 
— once  a  month,  all  accounts  being  settled  at  monthly  intervals.  It 
is  not  only  the  actual  amount  spent  in  any  given  period  of  four 
weeks  and  a  few  days  which  is  entered  in  these  volumes;  the  num- 
ber of  persons  to  be  provided  for  is  noted  as  well.  Thus  an  average 
is  struck/  and,  given  the  size  of  the  household  during  any  month, 


GREAT  LANDLORDS,    AND   ESTATE  MANAGEMENT.        29 

reference  to  earlier  entries  will  give  the  data  for  a  verdict  of  the 
reasonableness  of  the  pecuniary  statement  specially  under  review. 

There  are  fewer  points  of  difference  to  be  noted  in  the  out-door 
management  of  the  great  estates  of  England  than  formerly.  '] 
tendency  undoubtedly  has  been  to  reduce  varieties  to  a  dead  level  of 
excellence  and  merit.  Picturesque  customs  and  the  perpetuation 
of  romantic  and  feudal  traditions  will  be  looked  for  in  vain  in  all 
but  a  few  instances.  It  is  worth  noticing  that  whereas  such  survi- 
vals are  occasionally  found  on  properties  which  have  been  from  the 
first  in  the  hands  of  secular  lords,  they  are  practically  unknown  on 
estates  which  first  came  into  the  hands  of  secular  lords  at  the  time 
of  the  Reformation.  It  would,  in  fact,  seem  as  if  the  aristocracy 
who  profited  by  the  destruction  of  monasteries,  anxious  to  break  at 
once  and  forever  with  the  old  regime,  plunged  into  the  modern  and 
prosaic  period  at  once.  This  is  notably  the  case  with  the  great 
House  of  Bedford,  whose  property,  however,  once  possessed,  in  all 
matters  appertaining  to  its  administration,  certain  marked  peculiari- 
ties. Prominent  amongst  these  was  the  establishment  of  an  in- 
dustrial village,  which  was  an  integral  section  of  the  property  at 
Woburn.  The  remains  of  this  settlement  are  still  to  be  seen  in  the 
tall  factory  tower  conspicuous  among  the  trees.  In  the  old  days,  a 
generation  or  two  ago,  the  whole  place  resounded  with  the  din  of 
industry  and  labor.  The  property  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford  was  then 
self-sufficient,  in  the  Aristotelian  sense  of  the  word.  If  a  house  or 
cottage  had  to  be  built,  rails  or  gates  put  up,  repairs  ol  any  kind, 
whether  on  the  roofs  of  the  tenements  above  or  in  the  drainage  of 
the  ground  beneath,  the  workmen  to  execute  the  task  were  ready 
and  at  hand  within  the  confines  of  "Woburn  Abbey.  If  the  same 
work  had  to  be  done  on  other  portions  of  the  ducal  estates  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  England,  a  contingent  from  the  Bedfordshire  organiza- 
tion was  drafted  off.  There  was  something  eminently  feudal  in  the 
idea,  and  there  was  much  which,  in  its  day,  was  not  without  its 
practical  advantages.  But  the  shrewd  heads  of  the  ducal  house 
began  to  find  that  the  time  had  arrived  when  money  could  be  saved, 
and  the  work  done  as  effectively,  if  they  resorted  to  the  open  labor 
market.  The  "Woburn  organization  was  disbanded,  and  contracts 
with  master  builders  and  others  took  its  place. 

On  the  Duke  of  Westminster's  Cheshire  estate,  at  Eaton,  a  system 
not  unlike  that  which  formerly  existed  at  "Woburn  is  still  in  force. 
Here  a  staff  of  workmen  are  maintained  at  a  distance  of  two  mil 
from  his  Grace's  house,  in  a  place  known  as  "the  Yard."     The  Yard 
is,  in  fact,  a  small  industrial  village,  and  is  filled  with  works; i" 


30  ENGLAND. 

and  workmen's  dwellings.  To  become  attached  to  this  staff  is  gen- 
erally regarded  as  a  piece  of  promotion  and  hick.  The  actual  money 
value  of  these  places  is  not,  indeed,  in  excess  of  the  wages  of  la- 
borers elsewhere.  The  wage  itself  may  be  a  trifle  lower,  but  so  also 
is  the  rent  of  the  houses,  while  the  accommodation  and  sanitary  ar- 
rangements are  perfect  in  every  detail.  Men  know  well  enough 
that  they  have  but  once  to  secure  the  position,  and  to  behave  well, 
and  that  their  future  in  life  is  made.  They  will  be  encouraged  to 
practice  the  virtue  of  thrift,  and  working  steadily  through  the  years 
of  strength  and  manhood,  they  will  find  that  provision  has  been 
made  for  old  age,  sickness,  or  death.  But  the  staff  of  workmen  thus 
maintained  at  Eaton  is  not  sufficient  for  the  wants  of  the  property 
at  all  periods  of  the  year.  The  Duke  assumes,  in  the  majority  of 
instances,  responsibility  for  the  repairing  of  farms  and  cottages,  and 
the  contingent  of  the  Eaton  Yard  laborers  has  to  be  reinforced  by 
help  from  without.  In  such  cases  as  these,  the  necessary  arrange- 
ments are,  of  course,  made  by  contract,  and  it  would  probably  be  a 
rare  exception  to  find  any  large  estate  in  the  present  day  on  which 
the  contract  sj^stem  did  not  prevail  exclusively. 

If  we  would  see  how  onerous  and  complex  estate  management 
may  be,  how  nearly  the  power  and  responsibilities  of  a  great  terri- 
torial noble  approach  to  those  of  royalty,  what  various  departments 
the  principality  of  an  English  noble  may  include,  how  wide  is  the 
knowledge  and  how  incessant  the  care  necessary  for  dealing  with 
each,  we  cannot  do  better  than  go  to  the  most  northern  county  of 
England.  "We  will  select  a  district  of  which  Alnwick  Castle  is  the 
center,  and  it  is  the  dominion  of  the  Duke  of  Northumberland  of 
1  which  we  shall  take  a  rapid  survey.  The  ancestral  home  of  the 
Percys  may  be  said  in  a  sense  to  symbolize  the  character  of  their 
realm.  It  is  a  feudal  castle,  at  once  in  a  park  and  in  a  town.  On 
one  side,  opposite  the  chief  entrance  gate,  is  the  main  street  of  Aln- 
wick, a  thriving  community  of  some  six  thousand  souls;  on  the  other 
side,  strictly  speaking  on  all  the  other  sides,  is  the  park,  holding 
within  its  broad  limits  every  variety  of  woodland  scenery  of  moor 
and  forest,  of  rugged  mountain,  of  wild  coppice,  of  well-tended 
shrubberies,  and  of  rich  pasture  land.  A  river  of  uncertain  depth 
and  breadth  traverses  the  vast  domain — now  a  rivulet,  and  now  a 
foaming  torrent;  here  so  shallow  that  the  sands  that  form  its  chan- 
nel give  it  all  their  color,  and  here  a  series  of  deep,  dark  pools, 
where  the  salmon-trout  lie;  at  one  part  overhung  by  trees,  at  anoth- 
er flowing  on  through  an  unshaded  bed  of  shingle  and  rock.  There 
are  drives,  under  artificially  formed  avenues,  along  a  road  as  smooth 


GREAT  LANDLORDS,    AND  ESTATE  MANAGEMENT. 


as  that  running  from  Hyde  Park  Corner  to  the  Marble  Arch;  hut 
a  little  distance  off  the  path  is  steep  and  rocky,  and  one  is  in  the 
heart  of  a  complete  sylvan  solitude,  with  a  deer  park  on  one  hand, 
while  on  the  other  rise  the  bleak  heights  which  the  black  game 
love. 

The  situation  of  the  castle  typifies  the  nature  of  the  estate,  be- 
cause the  Duke  of  Northumberland  derives  his  revenues  partly  fr 
urban,  partly  from  rural  sources.  He  is  the  lord  of  many  acres 
wholly  given  up  to  the  farmer;  he  has  also  acres  burrowed  by  col- 
lieries and  rich  in  mineral  wealth,  and  acres  which  are  part  of,  or 
which  have  been  already  annexed  to,  the  great  capital  of  the  dis- 
trict, the  famous  port  of  Newcastle-on-Tyne.  As  he  has  farms  and 
villages,  so  he  is  proprietor  of  the  soil  on  which  docks  and  entire 
towns  are  built.  Midwav  between  Newcastle  and  Tvnemouth  an 
army  of  laborers  is  briskly  employed  in  excavating  and  clearing 
away  the  soil,  admitting  the  waters  of  the  Tyne  further  into  the 
land,  and  in  erecting  mighty  walls  of  granite,  and  cement,  almost 
as  indestructible  as  granite,  as  bulwarks  against  the  river.  The 
works  are  undertaken  by  and  at  the  expense  of  the  Tyne  River 
Commissioners.  But  the  land  is  the  Duke  of  Northumberland's, 
and  has  been  acquired  by  the  Commission  on  a  perpetual  ground 
rent.  The  ducal  interests  are  represented  on  that  Commission,  and 
the  plans  for  the  new  docks  have  been  submitted  to  the  Duke.  We 
go  a  few  miles  farther  down  the  river,  and  at  last  reach  the  point 
where  it  discharges  itself  into  the  German  Ocean.  We  have  in  fact 
reached  Tynemouth,  at  once  the  Brighton,  Ramsgate,  and  Margate  of 
the  prosperous  inhabitants  of  Newcastle-on-Tyne.  A  more  breezy 
watering-place,  a  nobler  expanse  of  sands,  a  finer  frontage  of  sea 
could  not  be  desired.  It  is  plain  that  Tynemouth  is  a  pleasure- 
town  of  modern  growth.  It  is  plain  also — from  the  predominance 
of  the  word  "  Percy  "  in  the  names  of  the  new  streets,  crescents,  and 
gardens — to  whom  Tynemouth  belongs.  One  of  the  last  titles  which 
may  have  caught  the  eye  of  the  traveler  as  he  drives  in  a  cab  to  St. 
Pancras  Station  is  perhaps  Woburn  Place,  or  Tavistock  Place.  Sup- 
pose that  he  leaves  the  train  at  Bedford,  Tavistock  or  Woburn  is 
still  the  legend  on  the  first  trim  row  of  houses  which  meets  his 
glance.  The  influence  and  power  of  the  great  families  of  England 
,  are  ubiquitous.  There  is  no  escaping  from  them;  they  are  shown 
alike  in  city  and  country,  in  town  and  suburb.  At  one  end  of  Tyne- 
mouth a  new  building  has  just  been  constructed,  with  adjacent 
pleasure-grounds  and  picturesque  walks:  it  is  a  winter  garden  and 
aquarium,  built  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  place  on  ground  which  is 


32  ENGLAND. 

given  them  by  the  benevolent  despot  of  the  district,  the  Duke  of 
Northumberland,  for  a  nominal  rent.  A  splendid  new  road  has  just 
been  completed:  it  is  the  Duke  of  Northumberland  at  whose  ex- 
pense the  work  has  been  done.  Yv'hat  Eastbourne  is  to  the  Duke 
of  Devonshire,  that  Tvnemouth  is  to  his  Grace  of  Northumberland. 
There  is  an  obvious  advantage  in  the  supreme  control  of  a  town 
being  thus  vested  in  one  landlord.  The  place  is  sure  not  to  be  dis- 
figured by  hideous  buildings,  and  not  to  be  spoiled  by  an  irruption 
of  undesirable  visitors.  At  Eastbourne  and  at  Tvnemouth  there  are 
laws  as  inflexible  as  those  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  against  the 
erection  of  houses  which  do  not  come  up  to  a  certain  standard  of 
beauty  and  solidity. 

Make  a  circular  tour  of  twenty  miles  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Tvnemouth,  and  you  will  perpetually  find  yourself  on  the  property 
of  the  Duke.  It  is  not  a  picturesque  neighborhood,  but  it  is  covered 
by  snug  homesteads  and  farm-buildings — the  perfection  of  cleanness 
and  neatness.  The  soil  is  fairly  fertile,  but  the  chief  wealth  of  the 
land  is  underneath.  We  are,  in  fact,  now  on  the  mining  property 
of  the  Duke.  The  colliers  have  just  finished  their  spell  of  work,  and 
are  going  home  to  their  pretty  cottages  with  the  well-cared-for  gar- 
dens behind,  and  their  porches  covered  with  honeysuckle  and  roses. 
The  mine  is  in  the  hands  of  a  company,  the  Duke  receiving  a  royalty 
on  its  produce,  and  that  is  the  arrangement  usually  adopted  where 
the  soil  of  a  property  is  rich  in  minerals.  For  extent  and  variety 
combined,  the  Duke  of  Northumberland's  property  is  perhaps  un- 
equalled in  the  United  Kingdom.  A  drive  of  thirteen  miles  from 
Acklington  to  Alnwick  will  take  you  through  a  tract  of  country 
utterly  different  from  that  in  the  vicinity  of  Tynemouth,  which  be- 
longs entirely  to  the  same  great  potentate.  It  is  a  rich  farming 
district,  the  average  acreage  of  each  farm  being  four  or  five  hundred 
acres.  Some  of  the  farms  on  the  Northumberland  property  are 
nearly  ten  times  this  size,  but  inasmuch  as  the  ground  let  with  them 
is  for  the  most  part  sterile  moorland  and  highland,  then*  size  is  in 
an  inverse  ratio  to  their  value.  England  could  show  no  better  spe- 
cimens of  farming  than  are  here  to  be  seen,  no  better-built  farm- 
houses, no  more  capacious  and  scientifically  arranged  out-houses, 
stables,  and  farmyards,  no  more  comfortable  houses  for  the  farm- 
laborers  themselves.  The  Duke's  tenants  are  thorough  masters  of 
then*  calling,  and  are  in  what  is  spoken  of  as  a  large  way  of  business. 
There  is  no  improvement  or  new  invention  relative  to  the  tillage  of 
the  soil  or  the  increase  of  its  capacities  that  is  not  speedily  adopted, 
no  precaution  possible  to  human  foresight  and  experience  for  re- 


GREAT  LANDLORDS,    AND   ESTATE   MANAGEMENT.        33 

ducing  the  evil  consequences  of  ungenial  and  inclement  seasons 
•which  is  not  taken.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  the  Northumberland  prop- 
erty that  in  almost  every  case  the  laborers  live  within  a  few  minutes' 
call  of  the  farmer  who  employs  them.  Each  farm  is  in  fact  a  com- 
pact, self-contained,  industrial  settlement.  There  is  the  i'ariuhoiis" 
itself — a  complete  modern  mansion,  with  all  the  improvements  of 
modern  times,  furnished  within  like  what  it  is,  the  residence  of  an 
educated  gentleman  of  the  nineteenth  century — the  farm-buildings, 
with  their  copious  supply  of  light,  air,  and  water,  granaries,  barns, 
and  the  most  approved  apparatus  for  the  prevention  of  waste  in  any, 
shape;  and  finally,  grouped  around  or  flanking  these,  the  dwellings 
of  the  laborers  with  their  porch,  oven  and  tank,  cool  larder,  and 
little  plots  of  garden  ground  before  and  behind. 

Such  are  the  external  features  of  a  typical  English  property  of 
the  first  order  of  magnitude.  What  is  the  principle  of  its  internal 
management,  and  the  s}rstem  of  its  general  administration?  The 
chief  agent  or  commissioner  of  this  vast  domain,  with  its  manifold 
industries  and  opportunities,  its  physical  characteristics  and  re- 
sources as  diverse  as  the  features  in  the  vast  landscape  which  it 
includes,  must  necessarily  be  a  man  of  wide  experience,  great  prac- 
tical knowledge,  a  quick  eye,  a  tenacious  memory,  an  apt  judge  of 
character,  a  thorough  farmer,  a  first-rate  man  of  business,  equally 
fitted  for  the  supervision  of  purely  agricultural  and  purely  commer- 
cial affairs.  He  is  responsible  to  his  chief  for  the  protection  of  his 
interests  and  the  improvement  of  his  property,  of  whatever  kind. 
He  has  to  negotiate  with  river  commissioners  and  town  corporations. 
He  has  to  negotiate  for  the  conclusion,  and  superintend  the  execu- 
tion, of  contracts.  He  has  to  listen  to  applications  from  tenants,  to 
see  to  the  redress  of  grievances,  to  decide  what  demands  are  reason- 
able and  what  suggestions  are  wise,  to  judge  whether  it  is  desirable 
that  repairs  in  any  farm-builings  or  farmhouse  shall  be  undertaken 
this  year  or  shah  be  postponed  until  the  next,  to  know  accurately 
what  are  the  works  in  any  particular  department  of  which  the  state 

,of  the  ducal  exchequer  will  admit  at  any  particular  time,  to  commu- 
nicate on  all  these  matters  periodically  with  the  Duke,  to  keep  an 
eye  over  the  expenditure  and  income  of  what  is  in  itself  a  little 
empire.  How  does  he  set  to  work  to  do  all  this  ?  The  entire  prop- 
erty is  mapped  out  into  provinces  called,  in  the  case  of  the  North- 
umberland property,  bailiwicks.     It  is  for  the  commissioner  to  see 

'  that  at  the  head  of  each  bailiwick  is  placed  a  proper  and  responsible 
person.     Applicants  for  the  position  are,  as  may  be  supposed,  over- 
whelmingly numerous.     Estate  management  has  become  a  profea- 
3 


34  ENGLAND. 

sion,  and  the  younger  sons  of  the  great  families  are  among  those 
who  seek  employment  in  it. 

But  the  agents  superintending  the  bailiwicks  are  only  one  divi- 
sion of  the  commissioner's  staff.  Entering  the  courtyard  of  Alnwick 
Castle  by  the  town  gate,  one  finds  immediately  on  the  right  hand 
the  Alnwick  estate  office.  Here  once  every  week  the  commissioner 
sees  any  one  of  the  Duke's  tenants  who  desires  an  interview,  on  what- 
ever purpose.  Here,  too,  he  meets  his  representatives.  It  is  from 
this  office  that  all  orders  are  issued  as  to  the  repairs  which  are  to  be 
done ;  and  if  a  builder  wishes  to  contract  for  any  work  on  the  estate 
it  is  to  this  office  that  his  application  is  made.  The  official  who  is 
directly  concerned  with  this  branch  of  the  office  is  the  "  clerk  of  the 
works."  The  agents  on  the  separate  bailiwicks  report  that  on  such- 
and-such  a  farm  it  is  desirable  that  such-and-such  things  shall  be 
done;  the  Duke's  commissioner  at  once  instructs  the  clerk  of  the 
works  to  consider  the  feasibility  of  the  proposal,  and  this  gentleman 
j>roceeds  to  look  at  the  matter  from  a  technical  point  of  view.  He 
too,  in  his  turn,  makes  a  report,  which  includes  an  estimate  of  the 
expenditure  and  other  observations.  This  document  comes  before 
the  commissioner,  who,  if  he  is  of  opinion  that  the  time  is  ripe  for 
the  enterprise,  and  that  the  Duke's  hands  are  not  already  too  full, 
forwards  the  entire  series  of  papers,  or  a  precis  of  them,  to  his 
Grace,  who  writes  his  answer,  "Yes"  or  "No,"  "I  approve"  or  "I 
disapprove,"  in  the  margin.  It  may,  and  does  occasionally,  happen 
that  there  is  a  conflict  of  opinion  between  the  bailiwick  agent  and 
the  clerk  of  the  works,  or  architect,  as  to  the  expediency  of  some 
specific  proposal.  They  may  disagree  as  to  the  exact  spot  on  which 
certain  buildings  are  to  be  erected;  the  extent  to  which  certain 
repairs  are  to  be  carried;  the  necessity  of  carrying  out  any  repairs 
at  all.  In  such  cases  the  commissioner  himself  will  be  called  upon 
to  arbitrate,  and  his  decision  in  that  stage  of  the  business  is  final. 
The  Duke  reserves  to  himself  the  right  of  sanctioning  or  rejecting 
the  idea;  but  direct  communication  between  the  Duke  and  his  agents, 
or  the  Duke  and  his  tenants,  there  is  none. 

Next  to  the  Duke  of  Northumberland's  Northumbrian  domin- 
ions, the  Duke  of  Cleveland's  Durham  estate  is  probably  the  largest 
owned  by  any  one  great  proprietor  in  any  single  county.  It  com- 
mences four  miles  to  the  west  of  Darlington,  a  town  which  contrasts 
in  every  respect  with  Alnwick.  Here  there  are  no  visible  signs  of 
that  feudal  influence  which  we  have  seen  outside  the  walls  of  the 
Percys.  Factory  towers,  which  are  to  the  great  manufacturing  cen- 
ters of  England  what  the  forests  of  masts  are  to  its  great  harbors, 


\ 


GREAT  LANDLORDS,    AXD   ESTATE   MANAGEMENT.        35 

are  visible  from  afar.  The  atmosphere  is  heavy  with  smoke,  and 
the  streets  swarm  with  factory  hands.  Look  where  you  will,  there 
is  nothing-  to  remind  one  of  the  old  county  town,  dominated  by  the 
social  iniiuences  of  a  ruling  house.  Darlington  is  twelve  miles  dis- 
tant from  Baby  Castle,  which  is  as  nearly  as  possible  the  center  of 
the  ducal  principality.  There  is  nothing  quite  like  Baby  in  Eng- 
land. It  is  a  huge  pile  of  castellated  granite  architecture,  which 
bears  the  stamp  in  every  part  of  no  mock  antiquity,  and  is  sur- 
rounded by  a  moat  centuries  old,  filled  with  water.  Here  there  are 
mediaeval  courtyards  and  quadrangles,  and  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  tho 
house  that,  at  the  chief  entrance,  there  are  doors  that,  on  being 
opened,  admit  a  carriage  bodily  into  the  hall,  by  a  passage  which 
runs  across  the  spacious  chamber  into  the  courtyard  on  the  other  side. 

The  portion  of  the  Duke's  property  in  the  immediate  neighbor- 
hood of  Raby,  amounting  to  some  25,000  acres,  is  held  by  tenantry 
whose  occupations  range  from  100  to  500  acres  each.  Much  of  this 
land  has  been  newly  laid  down  to  grass,  the  Duke  of  Cleveland 
being  generally  disposed  to  encourage  the  conversion  of  tillage  into 
pasturage,  and  assisting  his  tenants  in  the  work.  The  seeds  are 
given,  free  of  all  charge,  to  the  occupiers  of  the  soil  by  the  landlord, 
whenever  the  land  is  pronounced  to  be  in  a  suitable  condition  for 
their  reception.  In  the  upper  part  of  the  ducal  estate,  bordering 
upon  Cumberland,  are  the  lead  mines  of  which  his  Grace  is  entire 
owner,  leased  to  the  London  Lead  Company  and  other  lessees,  upon 
terms  that  will  presently  be  mentioned.  Here  most  of  the  agricul- 
tural tenants  are  connected  in  some  way  or  other  with  the  min- 
ing interest.  A  few  years  have  witnessed  great  improvements  and 
alterations  in  this  part  of  the  property.  Large  sums  have  been 
expended  in  the  rebuilding  of  dwelling-houses,  in  the  laying  down 
of  main  roads,  in  the  reclamation  of  land  by  drainage,  planting,  and 
enclosure.  The  result  of  these  operations  is  that,  as  on  the  Scotch 
estates  of  the  Duke  of  Sutherland,  the  whole  surface  of  the  country 
has  been  transformed,  and  what  was  once  a  barren  solitude  is  a  fer- 
tile and  prosperous  tract.  The  pasturage  of  this  region  has  increased 
by  the  addition  of  hundreds  of  acres  of  grass,  while  thrice  the  num- 
ber of  cattle  which  it  could  formerly  with  difficulty  support  now 
crop  its  abundant  herbage. 

These  works  have  been  conducted  greatly,  of  course,  to  the  in- 
creased value  of  the  property,  at  the  expense,  in  the  first  instance, 
of  the  owner,  and  by  workmen  esj^ecially  retained  and  employed 
for  the  purpose.  It  is  the  regular  organization  of  such  a  stall"  as 
this  purpose  requires  Avhich  is  the  first  thing  noticeable  in  the  man- 


3G  ENGLAND. 

agernent  of  the  Baby  property.  There  are  distinct  sets  of  work- 
men, regularly  employed  either  at  a  weekly  wage  or  else  by  piece- 
work, in  separate  yards  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  Castle. 
Close  to  the  building  is  an  inclosure  in  which  are  situated  the  house 
of  the  clerk  of  the  works  and  several  carpenters'  and  joiners'  shops. 
The  work  done  here  is  exclusively  devoted  to  the  Castle  itself,  and 
has  nothing  to  do  with  any  of  the  operations  on  the  general  estate. 
At  a  little  distance  from  this  is  a  much  larger  yard,  where  the  estate 
work  proper  is  carried  on.  Here  there  are  wheelwrights'  stalls, 
carpenters'  benches,  and  smiths'  forges,  where  wood  fences  are 
made  or  repaired,  carts  mended  and  even  manufactured.  But  the 
men  thus  employed  represent  only  a  small  proportion  of  the  perma- 
nent staff  retained  upon  the  Duke's  estate.  No  visitor  to  Baby  and 
its  neighborhood  can  fail  to  be  struck  by  the  admirable  neatness 
with  which  the  hedges  are  trimmed  and  the  palings  preserved,  or  by 
the  excellence  of  the  macadamized  roads.  This  is  entirely  because 
the  Duke  of  Cleveland  keeps  them  in  his  own  hands.  A  consider- 
able contingent  of  men,  skilled  in  every  thing  that  has  to  do  with 
hedges,  stone  walls,  fences,  and  highways,  is  perpetually  at  work. 
Any  tenant  may,  on  payment  of  their  wages,  avail  himself  of  the 
services  of  these,  the  landlord  having  the  satisfaction  of  knowing 
that  the  necessary  repairs  will  be  properly  carried  out.  In  the  case 
of  drainage  the  landlord  bears  the  entire  burden  of  the  expenditure, 
charging  the  occupant  of  the  soil  interest,  at  five  per  cent.,  on  the 
money  expended  upon  the  work.  Inside  Baby  Park  itself  900  acres 
of  land  are  retained  as  a  home  farm,  and  not  far  from  this  is  another 
farm  of  500  acres,  which,  held  by  the  Duke's  agent,  is  intended  as  a 
model  for  the  farmers  of  the  surrounding  district.  Here,  as  else- 
where, the  covenants  between  the  landlord  and  the  tenant  are  in  the 
shape  of  yearly  agreements:  the  landlord  reserves  to  himself  the 
sole  power  to  kill  every  kind  of  game,  and  the  tenant  knows  that  so 
long  as  he  farms  upon  sound  principles  he  enjoys  practical  fixity  of 
tenure. 

These  different  operations  and  properties  have  correspondingly 
distinct  departments  in  the  management  of  the  Duke  of  Cleveland's 
estate,  and  the  control  over  all  is  rigidly  centralized  in  the  office  of 
j  the  chief  agent,  which  is  within  the  castle  walls,  and  from  whom  all 
authority  issues.  The  system  here  pursued  is  more  purely  bureau- 
cratic than  in  the  case  of  either  the  Duke  of  Northumberland  or  the 
Duke  of  Devonshire.  Instead  of  administering,  like  the  latter,  his 
estate  by  several  agents  of  co-equal  power,  or,  like  the  former  by  a 
chief  commissioner  with  immediate  authority  over  a  number  of  gen- 


GREAT  LANDLORDS,   AND  ESTATE   MANAGEMENT.        :?7 

tlcraen,  the  Duke  of  Cleveland  is  directly  represented  only  by  <>no 
chief  agent,  who,  without  the  same  assistance  from  a  staff  of  subor- 
dinate officials,  is  responsible  for  the  control  of  the  whole  of  what 

is  called  the  "settled  estate,"  and  whose  head-quarters  are  at  Raby 
itself.  Thither  come  all  accounts  in  connection  with  the  Shropshire, 
Staffordshire,  and  Northamptonshire  properties  to  be  audited,  nor 

would  the  agents  or  bailiffs  on  any  of  these  engage  in  any  consid 
able  enterprise  without  communicating  with  the  chief  agent  or  with 
the  Duke  himself.  Weekly  and  monthly  returns  are  made  at  Elaby 
by  the  forester  and  his  staff,  by  the  hedging  and  draining  staff,  by 
the  foreman  of  the  laborers  employed  on  the  home  farm,  and  by  the 
controllers  of  the  house,  park,  and  gardens.  Entries  are  made  of  all 
in  ledgers  kept  with  the  greatest  neatness  and  nicety;  a  brief  absi  ract 
is  prepared  at  the  end  of  the  financial  year  and  submitted  to  the 
landlord.  There  are  other  features  in  the  administration  of  this 
admirably  managed  property  which  deserve  mention.  Rents  are 
paid  in  twice  a  year,  first  by  the  tenants  to  the  Duke's  head  repre- 
sentative, secondly  by  the  agents  to  the  Duke's  bankers.  But  from 
the  total  of  this  rental  there  has,  before  it  reaches  the  ducal  coffers, 
been  previously  deducted  the  expenditure  upon  repairs  and  perma- 
nent improvements,  according  to  the  estimate  which,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  financial  year,  has  been  submitted  to  his  Grace.  The 
expenses,  therefore,  of  the  estate  are  really  paid  before  their  propri- 
etor is  in  receipt  of  his  revenues,  and  all  those  revenues,  in  the  shape 
in  which  they  eventually  come  to  him,  represent  a  margin  of  clear 
profit. 

The  Raby  estate  office  is  also  the  head-quarters  of  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  mines  and  quarries.  For  the  conduct  of  all  of  these, 
or  rather  for  the  incoming  from  them  of  the  royalty  for  which  the 
Duke  has  let  them  to  lessees,  the  chief  agent  is  personally  respon- 
sible. As  this  gentleman  contrives  to  keep  the  territorial  dominion 
of  the  Duke  of  Cleveland  in  a  highly  satisfactory  condition,  with 
only  an  estate  bailiff  as  a  general  overseer  under  him,  so  by  the 
simple  instrumentality  of  a  mineral  bailiff,  he  effectually  protects 
the  interests  of  the  Duke,  vested  in  coal,  lead,  iron  mines,  and  si  one 
quarries.  On  special  occasions,  when  the  produce  of  a  mine  is 
weighed,  the  mineral  bailiff  is  personally  present,  but  the  general 
plan  is  for  the  authorities  of  the  mine  to  forward  to  the  Eaby  es- 
tate office  an  estimate  of  its  yield,  the  Duke's  agent  having  it  in 
his  power  to  examine  the  company's  books  as  a  check  upon  their 
figures. 

As  has  been  already  remarked,  there  are  few  exceptions  to  the 


38  ENGLAND. 

rule  in  the  case  of  the  great  landed  estates,  that  while  a  limited 
staff  of  workmen  is  permanently  retained  for  doing  johs  in  connec- 
tion with  the  house  of  the  great  landowner,  most  of  the  work  is 
performed  by  contract  with  local  mechanics  and  artisans.  Thus, 
the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  whose  properties,  if  their  acreage  is  not  so 
extensive  as  the  Duke  of  Northumberland's,  are  much  more  widely 
scattered,  keeps  a  small  contingent  of  plumbers  comfortably  housed 
above  the  stables  at  Chatsworth,  while  in  the  adjoining  wood-yard, 
house-joiners  and  estate-joiners  are  settled. 

The  Duke  of  Devonshire  himself  undertakes  the  execution  of  all 
repairs  for  the  tenants  of  his  estate — a  plan  which  has  the  great  ad- 
vantage, that  under  its  operation  there  are  no  perpetual  claims 
upon  the  landlord  for  improvements.  It  is  a  marked  feature  on 
the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  Derbyshire,  Yorkshire,  and  Lancashire 
properties,  that  in  very  many  instances  as  much  as  two  acres  of 
land  is  attached  to  the  laborers'  cottages.  This  not  merely  gives 
them  constant  occupation  of  a  profitable  kind,  enabling  them  often 
to  keep  a  couple  of  cows,  but  attaches  them  to  their  homes,  and 
invests  their  homes  with  a  special  and  enduring  interest.  It  has 
been  the  immemorial  custom  on  the  Devonshire  estates  to  let  farms 
by  annual  agreement,  subject  to  a  revaluation  at  the  end  of  every 
twenty-one  years. 

This  arrangement  comes  to  very  much  the  same  thing  as  a  lease 
for  that  term.  The  tenants  know  perfectly  well  that  so  long  as  they 
do  then  duty  by  the  land  they  will  not  receive  notice  to  quit;  and 
here,  as  elsewhere,  the  archives  of  the  estate  show  many  cases  in 
which  farms  have  been  in  possession  of  the  same  families,  from  father 
to  son,  for  many  generations,  and  not  unfreguently  for  two  or  three 
centuries. 

When  the  revaluation  is  made,  a  full  report  of  the  condition  of 
all  the  farms  and  other  portions  of  the  property  is  drawn  up.  Any 
thing  that  can  throw  light  upon  the  management  of  a  particular 
holding,  and  the  qualities  displayed  by  a  particular  tenant,  are  duly 
noted  down,  as,  also,  are  the  improvements  which  it  may  be  consid- 
ered desirable  to  institute,  or  which  the  tenant  himself  may  have 
suggested  as  necessary.  It  is  then  for  the  Duke  and  his  agents  to 
consider  whether  the  property  shall  remain  in  the  same  hands,  and 
what  repairs  shall  be  effected.  In  consideration  of  such  repairs  as 
may  finally  be  carried  out,  either  a  permanent  addition  is  made  to 
the  rent,  or  else  the  tenant  is  charged  a  percentage  on  the  money 
expended. 

The  estates  of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  lying  in  several  counties, 


GREAT  LANDLORDS,    AND  ESTATE  MANAGEMENT.        39 

it  would,  not  be  practicable  to  apply  to  thorn  the  principle  of  con- 
centration which  works  so  well  in  the  domains  of  the  Dukes  of 
Cleveland  and  Northumberland.  Such  a  thing  as  an  absolutely 
best  system  of  territorial  administration  is  no  more  possible  than 
an  absolutely  best  form  of  government;  and  just  as  the  relit  ions 
between  the  great  landlord  and  his  agents  will  depend  upon  the 
degree  of  mutual  knowledge  and  confidence,  so  the  principle  on 
which  estates  are  controlled  will  be  fixed  by  then  geographical  pecu- 
liarities. The  Duke  of  Northumberland  is  a  territorial  magnate  who 
has  one  prime  minister  as  his  commissioner,  and  as  much  may  be  said 
of  the  Dukes  of  Westminster  and  Cleveland.  The  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire has  probably  more  than  half  a  dozen  responsible  controllers, 
each  independent  of  the  other,  possessed  of  co-equal  and  co-ordinate 
powers,  and  each  communicating  directly  with  him.  These  gentle- 
men make  reports  to  his  Grace  on  the  condition  and  requirements 
of  their  separate  departments,  but  only  at  intervals  of  nearly  a  year, 
and  not  on  paper  only  or  chieliy,  but  in  personal  conversation.  The 
business  year  begins  and  ends  at  different  times  on  the  different 
properties,  and  consequently  the  season  of  the  annual  audit  of  each 
is  different  too.  Like  the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  the  Duke  of 
Devonshire  owns  not  merely  many  varieties  of  farms  as  well  as 
mines  and  mills,  but  a  prosperous  and  thriving  township.  His 
Grace,  indeed,  has  two  watering-places  in  which  his  power  is  supreme 
— one  the  inland  spa  of  Buxton,  the  other  Eastbourne  on  the  south 
coast.  At  both  of  these  places  the  land  is  let  out  for  building  pur- 
poses, the  landlord — as  was  the  case  with  the  Duke  of  Northumber- 
land at  Tynemouth — permitting  no  house  or  structure  of  any  kind 
to  be  erected  which  has  not  received  his  approval  or  that  of  his 
responsible  agents. 

Such  is  a  synoptical  view  of  the  natural  characteristics,  and  the 
general  principles  of  management,  of  three  or  four  of  the  largest 
properties  in  England — the  Westminster,  Northumberland,  Cleve- 
land, and  Devonshire  estates.  There  are  other  general  features  in 
the  administration  of  English  properties  which  might  be  studied  with 
advantage  by  many  continental  landlords.  The  strictest  method  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  very  soul  of  the  organization,  and  the  archives 
of  the  property  are  preserved  as  carefully,  and  are  in  their  way  as 
important,  as  those  of  a  department  of  the  public  service.  There 
are,  in  the  case  of  every  well-conducted  property,  piles  of  agree- 
ments between  landlord  and  tenants;  tin  cases  containing  the  bud- 
gets of  the  property  for  a  long  series  of  years;  estimates  of  ex- 
penditure, monthly  and  annual;  masses  of  manuscript  containing 


40  ENGLAND. 

the  data  on  which  these  estimates  are  drawn  up;  abstracts  of  ac- 
counts, with  marginal  references  to  ledger  folios,  and  a  perfect  li- 
brary of  volumes  made  up  of  the  correspondence  between  the  land- 
lord and  his  agents  on  the  affairs  of  his  estate  for  a  number  of  years. 
And  there  are  other  official  papers  than  these  relating  to  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  property.  One  is  "  A  Return  of  the  Progress  of 
New  Erections,  Alterations,  and  Repairs  made  under  the  Superin- 
tendence "  of  the  architect  for  the  estate  in  any  given  month.  It  is 
in  effect  a  little  manuscript  book  in  which  is  noted  the  progress  that 
has  been  made  in  the  works  undertaken  on  the  different  holdings, 
the  sums  that  have  been  actually  expended,  and  the  further  sums 
which  it  is  estimated  will  yet  have  to  be  expended — first,  in  the  course 
of  next  month;  secondly,  in  the  course  of  the  next  year.  Some  at 
least  of  these  figures — those  which  indicate  the  sums  estimated  as 
necessary  during  the  coming  month — have  a  place  in  another  printed 
form,  "Estimate  of  Expenditure."  On  this  sheet  there  are  further 
entries,  such  as  "Additions  and  Repairs,"  "Household  Gardens  and 
Pleasure  Grounds." 

There  is  yet  another  class  of  documents,  of  even  greater  impor- 
tance than  any  which  we  have  yet  examined.  They  are  those  which 
lay  down  in  legal  phraseology  the  relations  existing  between  land- 
lord and  tenant.  Here  there  is  no  absolute  uniformity,  but  there, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  an  approach  to  uniformity.  There  is  a  general 
indisposition  on  the  part  of  landlords  to  grant  leases  or  to  contract 
except  out  of  the  Agricultural  Holding's  Act.  Some  landlords  there 
are  who  give  their  tenants  the  option  of  a  lease  or  an  annual  agree- 
ment, and  some  who  permit  to  them  the  right  of  killing  ground 
game.  But  as  a  rule  the  tenure  of  farms  on  the  great  estates  is  a 
matter  of  annual  agreement.  Improvements  in  the  way  of  drainage, 
buildings,  roads,  and  fences  are  either  done  at  the  expense  of  the 
landlord,  or  if  the  tenant  immediately  defrays  their  cost  he  receives 
compensation  from  the  landlord.  In  all  leases  there  are  special 
clauses  reserving  to  the  landlord  property  in  the  minerals  under  the 
surface  of  the  soil.  The  landlord  stipulates  that  the  farmhouse 
shall  be  regularly  inhabited  by  the  tenant.  The  cost  of  repairs  is 
generally  a  matter  of  private  arrangement  between  landlord  and 
tenant,  but  in  the  majority  of  cases  it  is  upon  the  shoulders  of  the 
former  that  the  greater  part  of  the  burden  falls. 

The  great  estates  do  not  always  have  as  then-  owners  titled  or 
untitled  proprietors.  The  Crown  and  the  Ecclesiastical  Commis- 
sioners are  at  the  present  moment  the  most  extensive  landed  pro- 
prietors in  England,  having  the  management  of  properties  with  a 


GREAT  LANDLORDS,    AND  ESTATE   MANAGEMENT.        41 

rental  of  upwards  of  £400,000,  situated  in  all  parts  of  the  United 
Kingdom.  These  are  administered  upon  practically  the  same  prin- 
ciples which  obtain  in  the  case  of  the  large  landed  nobility.  The 
responsible  agents  are  two  eminent  firms,  officially  designated   as 

surveyors,  one  of  whose  jurisdiction  is  the  north,  and  the  other  the 
south,  of  that  portion  of  Great  Britain  which  is  this  side  of  the 
Tweed.  These  have  head  offices  in  London,  a  large  staff  of  clerks, 
secretaries,  and  architects,  and  a  variety  of  local  bailiffs.  Each  of 
the  surveyors  is  constantly  traveling,  receives  frequent  reports  from 
his  local  agents,  and  communicates  a  general  statement  of  affairs  to 
the  Commission,  to  which  he  may  be  said  to  stand  in  nearly  tin; 
same  relation  that  a  managing  director  does  to  the  other  members 
of  a  business  firm.  Under  the  present  Ecclesiastical  Commission 
the  value  of  the  Church  lands  has  nearly  doubled  in  the  course  of 
thirty  years.  The  surveyors  are  constantly  in  communication  with 
the  chief  agents  of  the  great  private  estates  of  England,  and  are. 
quick  to  adopt  any  improvement  which  suggests  itself  as  desirable 
or  practicable.  The  government  of  properties  which  are  in  the 
possession  of  the  great  City  Guilds  is,  for  the  most  part,  equally 
excellent  and  effective,  and  in  this  case,  too,  the  method  adopted  is 
that  in  force  upon  the  large  estates  which  we  have  seen. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  these  immense  properties,  which 
are  in  their  way  principalities,  are  the  only  instances  of  first-rate 
estate  management  in  England.  Many  of  the  smaller  properties  of 
country  gentlemen  and  of  noblemen,  are  controlled  with  an  effi- 
ciency and  ability  that  leave  nothing  to  be  wished.  The  same 
amount  of  organization  there  cannot  be,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
the  opportunity  and  necessity  for  it  do  not  exist.  Neither  can  it 
generally  be  expected  that  the  laborers'  cottages,  the  hedges,  drain- 
ing, and  roads,  should  be  in  the  same  perfect  condition  in  these  as 
in  the  case  of  the  kingdom  of  a  great  territorial  noble.  Uniform 
and  considerable  improvement  there  has  ever  here  been;  but  where 
the  supply  of  cajntal  is  necessarily  limited,  operations  cannot  be 
conducted  on  the  same  extensive  and  magnificent  scale.  In  com- 
paratively  few  estates  with  a  rental  of  less  than  £10,000  a  year  does 
the  landlord  keep  a  chief  agent,  who  is  exclusively  deAoted  to  the 
affairs  of  his  property.  In  many  cases  where  the  revenue  is  much 
in  excess  of  this  sum  the  agent  charged  with  the  superintendence 
of  one  property  is  responsible  also  for  the  control  of  a  second  or  a 
third.  There  is,  indeed,,  always  resident  on  the  estate  a  bailiff  of 
considerable  knowledge,  and  eminently  trustworthy,  who  duly  re- 
ports on  the  condition  of  affairs,  either  to  the  agent,  or  possibly  to 


42  ENGLAND. 

the  landlord  himself.  "When  the  estate  is  a  much  smaller  one,  say 
from  £3,000  to  £7,000  per  annum,  the  official  who  receives  the  rents 
is  probably  an  estate  agent  by  profession,  and  has  the  charge  of  a 
great  number  of  these  domains,  often  at  some  distance  from  each 
other.  Experience  proves  the  wisdom  of  employing  such  a  repre- 
sentative in  the  management  of  estate  business,  and  experience  also 
proves  that  the  attempt  to  delegate  the  authority  which  that  man- 
agement implies  to  the  bailiff,  who  is  in  social  station  inferior  in  all 
probability  to  the  tenants,  does  not  answer  well.  The  custom,  which 
was  once  common,  of  placing  estates  in  the  management  of  county 
solicitors,  is  gradually  falling  into  desuetude,  though  still  very  far 
from  being  obsolete. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

RURAL     ADMINISTRATION. 

Government  of  an  English  Village— Elections  of  Guardians  of  the  Poor  expected  : 
Local  Interest  taken — Extent  to  which  Boards  of  Guardians  have  assumed 
Powers  previously  vested  in  the  Vestry — Candidates  for  the  Election,  and 
Principles  at  issue — Defective  Sense  of  Personal  Responsibility  and  Duties 
of  Citizenship  among  all  Classes  of  Englishmen  —Influence  of  Great  Nobles 
on  Squirearchy,  and  indirectly  upon  Boards  of  Guardians — Meeting  of  the 
Board :  Kinds  of  Business  discussed,  and  various  Functions  discharged — 
Magistrates  at  Quarter  Sessions — Kinds  of  Business  done,  and  Way  in 
which  it  is  done — Opportunities  of  the  Institution,  and  some  Reforms 
in  it  suggested. 

IT  is  the  smaller  squires,  a  gradually  diminishing  class,  and  the 
farmers,  who  do  the  daily  work  of  the  government  of  rural  En- 
gland, and  who  form  the  rank  and  file  of  the  local  officials.  How 
does  the  administrative  machinery  thus  constituted  work  when  it  is 
actually  in  motion  ? 

It  so  hapj^ens  that  there  is  some  little  excitement  noticeable  in 
the  village  or  parish  which  we  are  now  visiting.  During  the  past 
fortnight  there  has  been  much'  disputation,  mainly  of  a  personal 
r  character,  among  the  ratepayers  who  compose  the  parish  vestry;  a 
good  deal  more,  indeed,  than  might  have  been  expected,  seeing  that 
the  parish  ratepayer  has  comparatively  little  authority  himself  di- 
rectly to  exercise.  He  has  been  compelled  to  acquiesce  in  the  cen- 
tralizing tendencies  of  the  times,  and  to  delegate  to  a  few  trusted 
individuals  the  power  which  was  once  absolutely  deposited  in  his 
own  person.     Every  parish  officer,  Mr.  C.  S.  Read  said  not  long  ago 

\  in  the  House  of  Commons,  has  been  disestablished  in  the  last  fifty 
years  except  the  parson.  The  remark  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration. 
The  churchwardens  continue  to  exist,  but  their  sphere  is  purely  eo- 

\  clesiastical;  the  parish  constable  became  an  anachronism  by  the  Act 
of  1872,  though  the  gradual  disuse  in  practice  of  his  office  may  be 
traced  to  the  at  first  gradual,  and  then  compulsory,  institution  of  a 
county  police  force,  dating  from  about  1850,  or  alike  later;  the  over- 
seers are  only  officials  for,  in  technical  parlance,  "making  "  the  rate, 


/ 


44  ENGLAND. 

for  which  the  guardians,  like  county  justices,  merely  issue  a  precept. 
It  may  be  mentioned,  however,  that  the  overseers  have  also  one 
other  important  function:  they  make  up,  in  the  first  instance,  the 
roll  or  ratable  property  which,  subject  to  the  revision  of  the  Assess- 
ment Committee,  determines  the  assessment  of  the  parish.  In  vari- 
ous valuation  bills  it  Las  been  proposed  to  give  them  the  aid  of  the 
surveyor  of  taxes  in  doing  this,  but  they  do  not  like  the  idea,  which 
will  in  all  probability  ere  long  be  carried  out,  while  there  are  pro- 
posals to  abolish  their  assessment  functions  altogether. 

The  miniature  image  of  our  representative  system  may  be  seen 
in  the  English  village,  and  it  is  a  question  of  representation  which 
is  now  exercising  the  little  community.  The  parish  is  one  of  about 
twenty  *  in  the  district  which  are  about  to  send  a  delegate  to  a  body 
that,  with  more  appropriateness  than  the  vestry,  may  be  called  the 
local  Parliament — the  Board  of  Guardians.  The  principle  at  issue 
is  one  of  real  importance,  and  considerable  interest  has  been  taken 
in  the  names  inscribed  on  the  nomination  papers,  which  have 
been  already  forwarded  to  the  clerk  of  the  Board.  Every  voter, 
in  other  words  every  ratepayer,  has  a  right  of  nomination,  and,  ex- 
ercising this  right,  a  simple  agricultural  laborer  has  had  the  au- 
dacity to  propose  a  gentleman — perhaps  the  parson  of  the  parish 
■ — who  is  known  to  look  at  affairs  of  local  administration  from  a 
point  of  view  that  is  not  too  popular  in  the  neighborhood.  The 
miniature  polity,  in  fact,  is  divided  into  parties  by  an  embittered 
dispute  as  to  whether  the  guardian  to  be  elected  shall  be  a  candi- 
date who  is  in  favor  of,  or  opposed  to,  the  system  of  out-door  re- 
lief ;  whether  he  shall  be  one  who  would  make  stricter  regulations 
for  securing  the  minimum  of  out-door  relief  by  more  rigidly  enforc- 
ing the  test  of  the  "house";  whether,  in  other  words,  as  we  shall 
see  hereafter,  he  is  to  be  the  advocate  or  antagonist  of  a  practice 
which,  as  facts  and  figures  abundantly  prove,  promotes  chronic  pau- 
perism among  the  working  classes,  tends  more  than  any  thing  else 
to  degrade  the  character  of  the  lower  orders,  and  absolves  the 
higher  from  individual  responsibility  in  relation  to  their  humbler 
neighbors.  Fifty  years  ago,  this  kind  of  contest  was  unknown  in 
English  village  life.  The  autonomy  of  the  parish  was  then  unim- 
paired; the  jurisdiction  of  the  vestry,  or,  at  least,  of  the  overseers, 
who  on  this  matter  were  the  great  parochial  authority,  though  un- 
der the  old  poor  law  they  were  sometimes  overridden  by  the  rul- 

*  There  are  15,000  parishes  and  050  unions  in  England — hence  the  average 
is  about  23  parishes  to  a  union;  some  unions  have  40  or  50,  and  there  are  others 
with  as  many  as  70  "or  90. 


RURAL    ADMINISTRATION.  45 

ing  power  of  the  magistrates,  was  in  theory  absolute.  During  the 
greater  portion  of  the  first  half  of  the  present  century,  e  ich  pariah 
not  only  had  the  management  of  its  own  poor,  but  also  in  matters 
relating  to  its  sanitary  condition  its  local  taxation  was  a  strictly  self- 
governing  institution.  Roads  are  intentionally  excluded  from  the 
above  list,  seeing  that  over  6,000  of  the  rural  parishes  of  England 
(nearly  half  probably)  retain  their  management  of  roads  by  elective 
parochial  surveyors,  and  that  highway  districts  arc  permissive  only. 
One  after  another,  these  parochial  prerogatives  have  been  lost,  and 
little  more  in  the  way  of  the  active  duties  of  admin  ion  is  Lefl 

to  the  vestry  than  the  collection  of  rates  which  they  have  no  power 
themselves  to  fix. 

The  Board  of  Guardians  having  concentrated  in  themselves  the 
chief  administrative  and  executive  functions  of  the  ratepayers,  as 
weU  as  having  added  to  these  other  powers  which  overseers  and 
vestry  never  possessed,  it  is  natural  that  considerable  local  ellbrts 
shoidd  be  made  to  influence  its  composition.  Accordingly,  when 
the  village  vestry  met,  a  rather  rare  event,  a  couple  of  weeks  since 
on  parochial  business,  some  allusion  was  made  to  the  forthcoming 
contest,  and  the  cpialifications  of  the  different  candidates,  which  led 
to  a  keen  and  even  acrimonious  debate.  Since  then  the  discussion 
has  been  continued  in  the  village  tap-room,  at  cottage  hearth-sides, 
in  farmhouse  yards,  in  the  market  towns,  and  wherever  else  the 
electors  or  their  nominees  have  happened  to  meet.  The  struggle, 
it  is  clear,  lies  between  two  competitors  for  the  sometimes  coveted 
distinction;  a  farmer  of  some  substance,  who,  rising  superior  to  the 
prejudices  of  many  of  his  class,  believes  that  out-door  relief  is  an 
unmitigated  mischief  to  the  poor  themselves,  and  a  local  publican  in 
a  brisk  way  of  business,  who  regards  all  recipients  of  out-door  relief 
as  potential  accessions  to  the  ranks  of  his  customers.  It  may  be 
that  there  is  a  sentimental  philanthropist  who  is  also  in  the  field, 
but  he  will  only  divide  one  party  or  the  other,  and  the  election 
mainly  reduces  itself  to  a  struggle  between  the  principles  that  have 
been  indicated. 

Because  the  name  of  the  parson  has  not  been  mentioned  in  con- 
nection with  the  competition,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  he  neces- 
sarily holds  himself  aloof  from  it.  He  may  be  a  candidate  himself; 
or  he  may,  in  his  capacity  of  chairman  of  the  vestry,  which  con- 
stitutes the  electoral  body,  be  using — as  it  is  perfectly  legitimate 
he  should  use — his  influence  in  support  of  a  particular  candidate. 
After  not  a  little  experience  he  has  come  to  the  conclusion  thai 
moral,  social,  and  educational  welfare  of  the  neighborhood  isjeop- 


46  ENGLAND. 

ardized  by  the  indifference  of  the  farmers,  who  compose  the  great 
majority  of  the  Board,  to  the  questions  which  very  nearly  concern 
them.  For  it  is  the  farmers  who  are  the  real  local  legislators  of 
rural  England,  and  the  British  farmer  who  takes  an  extensive,  a 
liberal,  and  an  enlightened  view  of  the  duties  of  his  position  is  less 
commonly  met  with  than  might  be  wished.  To  put  it  differently, 
he  seldom  proposes  to  himself  a  higher  standard  of  responsibility 
than  that  which  is  common  to  his  class;  and  to  say  this  is  to  bring 
no  worse  charge  against  him  than  that  he  regards  existence  and  its 
duties  from  the  same  point  of  view  as  do  most  of  his  social  betters. 
The  conception  of  the  duties  of  citizenship  has  yet  to  be  quickened 
among  all  classes  of  the  community. 

The  great  local  magnate,  the  representative  of  monarchy  in  his 
own  provincial  world,  the  apex  and  figure-head  of  English  local 
government — the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  the  county  himself — sets  the 
example  which  the  squirearchy  imitate,  and  to  which  the  yeomanry 
unconsciously  conform.  The  Lord  Lieutenant  is  a  nobleman  of 
great  wealth  and  birth,  of  blameless  reputation,  of  beneficent  inten- 
tions. He  is  the  patron  of  local  societies,  of  schools,  of  charitable 
institutions  beyond  number.  He  is  generous,  philanthropic,  and 
probably  something  of  an  autocrat.  He  contributes  largely  to  the 
support  of  all  local  movements,  if  they  are  in  what  he  considers 
the  "right  direction";  whether  they  are  right  he  claims  himself  to 
decide,  and  the  principle  of  their  conduct  he  rigidly  prescribes. 
If  a  neighborhood  in  which  he  has  property  wants  a  dole  out  of  the 
great  man's  purse  to  enable  it  to  build  a  school,  he  will  take  the 
whole  expenditure  upon  his  own  hands,  and  will  start  the  parents 
and  ratepayers  of  the  district  with  a  school  building  complete  down 
to  the  smallest  particular.  But  he  will  do  this  only  on  condition 
that  the  inhabitants  should  adopt  a  School  Board  immediately,  or 
should  pledge  themselves  not  to  adopt  it,  according  to  the  color  of 
his  political  opinions.  And  in  seventy-five  cases  out  of  a  hundred 
the  great  man  carries  his  point.  The  demagogues  of  the  village 
beer  shops,  and  revolutionary  tillers  or  tenants  of  the  soil,  may  talk 
as  they  will,  but  the  "  Castle  " — if  such  be  the  name  and  style  of  the 
ancestral  dwelling  of  the  great — has  but  to  express  its  wish,  the 
wish  becomes  law,  and  eager  effect  is  given  to  the  law  by  the  veriest 
Thersites  of  the  district.  The  son  of  our  typical  potentate  is  not 
perhaps  a  young  man  of  great  natural  aptitude  for  affairs,  and  he  is 
certainly  the  professor  of  an  anti-popular  and  exclusive  political 
creed.  But  his  she  considers  that  the  time  has  arrived  when  he 
should  represent  a  division  of  the   county  in  Parliament,   and  a 


RURAL    ADMINISTRATION.  47 

meeting  is  accordingly  held  at  which  it  is  unanimously  decided 
that  the  noble  lord  is  the  only  eligible  candidate.  The  resolution 
is  proposed  by  one  Boanerges,  who  has  recently  been  inveighing  in 
his  own  circle  against  the  influence  of  the  territorial  aristocracy, 
and  has  been  seconded  by  another  who  is  locally  credited  with  an 
aim  and  mission  of  a  still  more  subversive  character. 

All  this,  it  may  be  said,  is  as  it  should  be,  and  if  all  that  could  be 
advanced  against  the  duke,  marquis,  or  earl,  who  is  the  king  of  the 
county,  were  that  he  was  an  amiable  desjiot,  it  would  amount  to  very 
little.  But  he  is  also,  unfortunately,  for  the  most  j^art  an  absentee, 
and  when  he  is  at  home  he  is  apt  to  be  too  much  occupied  with  his 
guests,  his  foxhounds,  and  his  battues,  to  attend  to  the  more  irk- 
some responsibilities  of  vast  possessions.  There  are  certain  ances- 
tral charities  on  his  estate  which  must  be  kept  up,  and  his  agent 
has  to  keejD  them  up  accordingly.  There  are  certain  institutions  in 
his  villages  known  as  almshouses,  which  have  been  endowed  from 
generation  to  generation  by  charges  on  the  great  man's  estate,  and 
he  ignores  the  fact  that  these  establishments  are  for  the  most  part 
hot-beds  of  pauperism,  and  of  helpless,  hopeless  want.  It  is  not  to 
his  taste  to  take  a  leading  part  in  the  business  of  the  county,  and 
accordingly  the  gentry  who  live  about  him,  the  squires  of  various 
degrees  of  wealth  and  dignity,  practice  a  similar  abstention.  If  his 
grace  or  his  lordship  goes  to  a  county  meeting,  then  the  minor  ter- 
ritorial riders,  the  untitled  squires,  will  go  also,  because,  in  conven- 
tional parlance,  it  is  "the  right  thing  to  do."  But  the  country  gen- 
tlemen, being  in  the  great  majority  of  instances  magistrates,  are  ex 
officio  members  of  the  local  Board  of  Guardians — are,  in  fact,  in  vir- 
tue of  their  position,  responsible  for  the  pauperism,  the  financial, 
the  sanitary,  and  the  educational  state  of  the  neighborhood.  Their 
power  for  good  or  evil  is  practically  unlimited,  and  if  it  is  to  be  for 
good,  it  must  be  actively  exercised,  and  its  active  exercise  means 
constant  attendance  at  the  meetings  of  the  Board,  not  merely  rare 
periodical  appearances  for  the  purposes  of  patronage,  or  perfunc- 
tory participation  in  the  discharge  of  the  functions  of  the  mag- 
isterial bench.  If,  therefore,  our  local  Parliaments  sometimes  do 
their  work  imperfectly,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  cause  of 
their  defects  is  closely  associated  with  a  hundred  deeply  rooted 
habits  and  traditional  prejudices.  "What  is  wanted  is  a  keener  and 
wider  conception  of  duty,  and  if  the  parish  parson  can  help  to  create 
such  a  sentiment,  and  actively  make  it  felt  either  at  the  election  of 
Guardians  or  at  the  meeting  of  the  Board  itself,  happy  is  he,  and 
well  will  it  be  for  the  neighborhood. 


48  ENGLAND. 

Meanwhile  the  election  itself  is  over;  the  new  Board  of  Guard- 
ians is  complete,  and  its  sittings  have  begun.  The  magistrates,  par- 
sons, farmers,  tradesmen,  and  publicans  who  constitute  the  Board — 
if  it  happens,  indeed,  to  include  so  many  varieties  of  English  life- 
have  come  together  on  the  occasion  of  one  of  their  weekly  meetings, 
at  the  regular  place  of  rendezvous.  There  is  plenty  of  business  to 
discuss,  and  there  is  likely  to  be  some  rather  sharp  debating  of  the 
rougher  sort.  The  chairman,  it  may  possibly  be,  is  not  quite  punc- 
tual in  his  arrival  at  the  scene  of  action,  and  it  is  beginning  to  be  a 
question  whether  his  place  will  not  have  to  be  filled  by  deputy.  He 
comes  at  last,  genially  apologetic  or  transparently  indifferent,  as  the 
case  may  be;  a  representative  English  gentleman,  more  at  home  in 
the  field  than  in  the  council-chamber,  and  slightly  disposed,  perhaps, 
to  push  the  principle  of  leaving  well,  or  perhaps  bad,  alone,  further 
than  might  seem  desirable  even  to  some  languid  reformers.  He 
owns  a  fair  property  in  the  neighborhood,  is  honestly  desirous  to 
do  his  duty,  and  believes  that  on  the  whole  this  duty  is  best  done 
by  allowing  matters  pretty  much  to  take  their  own  course. 

Contrast  with  him  yonder  clerical  member  of  the  Board,  who 
sees  in  it  a  great  agency  for  effecting  those  reforms  which  have,  as 
he  believes,  a  directly  religious  sanction.  He  is  a  gentleman  of  some 
determination,  knows  what  he  means,  and  has  a  tolerably  clear  idea 
as  to  the  manner  in  which  what  he  wants  is  to  be  secured.  There 
is  a  look  about  his  eyes  which  stamps  upon  him  as  clearly  as  could 
words  the  legend,  "  No  surrender !  "  On  his  face  there  are  visible 
those  lines  of  quiet  resolution  which  proclaim  that,  if  fighting  is 
necessary,  fight  he  will.  He  is  noticeable. in  many  respects  among 
his  colleagues  in  the  Board-room:  the  petty  squire,  in  somewhat 
straitened  circumstances,  who  has  just  strolled  in,  but  who  has  no 
idea  in  particular,  and  who  is  secretly  absorbed  in  calculating 
whether  he  can  afford  a  hous^  in  London  during  the  coming  season, 
or  a  continental  trip  in  the  autumn;  the  publican  or  tradesman,  who, 
compliant  and  servile  in  his  business,  has  views  of  his  own,  which  he 
intends  to  stand  up  for  among  his  brother  guardians;  the  ordinary 
specimen  of  the  British  farmer,  whose  notions  are  summed  up  in  the 
simple  formula  that  nothing  must  be  done  which  seems  to  threaten 
an  increase  of  the  rates.  He  has  allies  and  he  has  enemies  at  the 
Board.  If  there  are  those  who  see  in  our  parson  an  intermeddler, 
there  are  those  also  who  know  that  he  is  earnestly  and  courageously 
working  out  a  faith  which,  in  process  of  time,  is  destined,  if  effect 
be  given  to  it,  to  lighten  the  earth  by  removing  from  its  surface 
several  tons  of  human  misery.     It  may  also  be  that  more  than  one 


RURAL    ADMINISTRATION.  |;i 

of  the  landowners  in  the  district  not  only  recognizes  but  utilizes  the 
opportunities  of  his  position,  and  is  a  member  of  the  Board  m 
reality  as  well  as  in  name;  or  that  among  the  tanners  there  are 
some  who  actively  sympathize  with  the  good  work.  Lastly,  there 
are  few  Boards  of  Guardians  which  do  not  count  among  their  mem- 
bers one  or  two  of  the  smaller  kind  of  tradesmen,  who  are  al  once 
the  most  fussy  and  revolutionary  of  the  body. 

AVhat  is  the  work  on  which  our  guardians  are  engaged  to-day? 
It  may  belong  to  one  or  several  of  many  varieties,  for  the  functions 
of  guardians  are  only  less  numerous  and  complicated  than  the  au- 
thorities under  which  the  inhabitant  of  a  rural  parish  lives.  The 
simple  English  villager  is  the  creature  of  a  highly  complex  economy. 
He  maybe  defined  as  one  who  lives  in  a  parish,  in  a  union,  in  a 
highway  district,  or  in  a  county,  according  to  the  point  of  view 
which  is  taken,  while  in  three  of  these  he  always  is.  It  is,  further, 
far  from  unlikely  that  he  should  be  subject  to  six  kinds  of  authority  : 
the  Local  Board,  the  vestry — whose  officers,  as  we  have  seen,  are  the 
overseers — the  School  Board,  the  Highway  Board,  the  guardians, 
and  the  justices.  As  is  the  multiplicity  in  the  possible  modes  of 
government  with  which  he  is  acquainted,  such,  or  almost  such,  may 
be  that  of  the  taxation  which  he  has  to  pay,  even  much  of  this  taxa- 
tion, so  far  as  it  is  levied  for  local  purposes,  is  called  by  the  generic 
name  of  "Poor  Rate."*  Three  kinds  of  authority  there  are  which 
are  universal  from  one  end  of  England  to  the  other:  the  poor  law 
authority,  the  highway  authority,  and  most  noticeable  of  all,  the 
sanitary  authority.  The  bodies  exercising  these  powers  in  town 
and  country  are  not  the  same,  but  there  is  no  corner  of  the  land 
over  which  the}'"  are  not  spread.  In  rural  districts,  such  as  that 
which  we  are  now  considering,  the  sanitary  authority  is  the  Board 
of  Guardians,  and  we  may  suppose  that  it  is  a  sanitary  question 
which  engages  its  attention  to-day. 

Our  guardians  then,  let  it  be  understood,  have  considered  the 
reports  of  particular  cases  of  distress  made  to  them  by  their  agents, 
the  relieving  officers;  have  disposed  of  sundry  demands  for  out-door 
relief;  have  decided  what  admissions  shall  be  made  to  the  work- 
house itself.     In  their  capacity  of  guardians  of  the  poor  pure  and 

*  Although  by  no  means  the  whole  of  taxation  for  local  purposes  is  com- 
prised under  the  name  of  Poor  Rate,  that  rate  does  generally  comprise  tho 
County  or  Borough  Rate,  the  School  Board  Rate  (in  rural  districts),  tho  Sani- 
tary General  Rate,  and  where  Highway  Boards  exist  it  will  include  the  Highway 
Rate.  In  other  cases,  the  Highway  Rate  is  a  wholly  separate  charge;  and  so, 
where  it  exists,  is  the  rate  levied  by  Local  Boards. 

4 


50  ENGLAND. 

simple  they  have  thus  exhausted  the  catalogue  of  their  duties.  But 
they  have  much  else  to  think  of.  In  some  instances  they  have  the 
functions  of  a  School  Board  to  discharge,  as  members  of  the  local 
School  Attendance  Committee;  they  have  to  revise  valuation  lists; 
they  have  to  look  closely  after  sanitary  matters,  and  to  consider  the 
reports  of  paid  sanitary  officers.  They  may  be  sitting  in  full  con- 
clave, or  as  members  of  one  of  the  committees  to  which  they  have 
delegated  their  functions.  Their  business,  we  will  assume,  on  the 
present  occasion  is  sanitary.  They  have  received  the  unwelcome 
intelligence  that  a  deadly  epidemic  has  broken  out  at  some  point 
in  the  union  area,  and  shows  every  disposition  to  spread;  or  they 
have  reason  to  fear  that  the  drainage  is  not  quite  satisfactory;  or 
they  are  puzzled  to  know  why  the  sanguine  anticipations  of  their 
medical  officer  should  be  falsified  with  such  lamentable  emphasis 
by  results.  One  of  their  number  ventures  to  suggest  that  perhaps 
the  reason  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  they  push  the  doctrine  of 
delegated  responsibility  to  an  indefensible  extent.  And  in  truth 
there  may  be  something  in  the  theory.  They  have  intrusted  to  a 
medical  expert,  paid  by  a  handsome  salary,  duties  which  it  would  be 
infinitely  better  they  should  fulfil  themselves.  The  medical  expert 
has  assured  them  that  all  is  right,  but  there  can  be  nothing  more 
unconscionable  or  perverse  in  their  action  than  the  pestilences  and 
sicknesses  to  which  humanity  is  heir.  One  guardian  has  every 
reason  to  believe  that  the  district  in  question  is  from  a  hygienic 
point  of  view  all  that  could  be  desired.  It  is  true,  for  some  time 
past  there  has  been  a  nasty  sore  throat  about,  but  then  it  is  in  the 
air.  It  may  be  that  the  drainage  is  defective,  but  then  our  guardian 
will  argue  that  the  most  perfect  drainage  in  the  world  cannot  make 
the  unclean  clean,  though  he  omits  to  notice  the  truth  that  when 
j)ollution  is  systematically  promoted  by  imperfect  drainage,  cleanli- 
ness is  impossible. 

Much  ingenuity  is  expended  in  framing  hypotheses  to  explain  the 
origin  of  the  evil;  more  money  is  voted  for  patent  drainage  pipes; 
the  experienced  medical  officer  is  exhorted  to  keep  his  eyes  particu- 
larly wide  open.  Every  thing,  in  brief,  is  done  but  the  one  thing 
necessary.  The  guardians,  who  constitute  the  sanitary  authority, 
are  not  persuaded  that  so  long  as  they  abdicate  in  any  degree  their 
own  personal  functions  a  satisfactory  result  is  impossible;  and  that, 
if  they  would  insure  the  neighborhood  against  noxious  maladies 
generated  by  preventible  causes,  they  must  not  fear  to  thrust  their 
presence  into  unlovely  corners,  or  to  hold  their  nostrils  above  un- 
savory smells.     It  is  in  sanitary  matters  as  it  is  in  matters  of  pau- 


RURAL    ADMINISTRATION.  51 

perism,  and  as  it  is  to  some  extent  in  educational  matters:  the  sense 
of  individual  and  personal  responsibility  is  lacking,  and  the  vigorous 
spirits  are  few  and  far  between  that  bring  the  need  of  the  sense  of 

responsibility  home  to  those  breasts  from  which  it  should  never  be 
absent.  The  machinery  which,  it  may  be  argued,  ought  to  have  this 
effect  is  at  work — this  is,  the  Local  Boards  are  responsible  to  the 
central  government.  The  Local  Government  Board  in  Louden  de- 
mands and  receives  statements  of  annual  income  and  expenditure' 
from  the  Board  of  Guardians  in  the  country,  despatches  its  inspec- 
tors to  report  on  all  they  see  or  can  ascertain,  only  helps  the  local 
authorities  with  loans  at  three  and  a  half  percent,  when  the  purpose 
for  which  the  loan  is  wanted  has  received  its  official  approval.  Yet 
something  more,  it  is  plain,  than  this  is  necessary  if  we  are  to  see 
uniformity  of  law  or  practice  established  at  our  Boards  of  Guard- 
ians, and  if  the  customs  of  one  Board  are  to  be  brought  into  any 
decree  of  accord  with  those  of  another  onlv  five  miles  off.  On 
the  representation  of  then  medical  officer,  the  guardians  give  in- 
structions that  drains  shall  be  enlarged,  or  that  new  sewers  shall  be 
made.  It  is  obvious  that  the  benefit  of  these  reforms,  while  in  a 
general  sense  felt  by  the  whole  community,  is  specially  and  imme- 
diately experienced  by  the  landlords  of  houses.  A  well-drained 
tenement  has  a  higher  marketable  value,  commands  a  greater  rental 
I  than  one  which  is  ill-drained,  and  the  better  drainage  is  no  sooner 
effected  than  the  rental  goes  up  accordingly.  Naturally  the  conse- 
quence of  this  is  to  diminish  the  sense  of  responsibility  which  at- 
taches to  the  landlords;  and  thus  the  many  are  taxed  for  the  direct 
and  peculiar  aggrandizement  of  the  few. 

Thus  much  of  vestries  and  Boards  of  Guardians.  We  rise  grad- 
ually to  a  higher  sphere,  and  approach  a  more  august  authority,  the 
County  Magistrates  assembled  in  the  Court  of  Quarter  Sessions.  Of 
the  duties  of  magistrates,  or,  to  give  them  their  more  dignified  title, 
Justices  of  the  Peace,  in  Petty  Sessions,  more  will  be  said  elsewhere. 
There  are  in  all  some  820  Petty  Sessional  divisions  in  England  and 
Wales,  which  only  accidentally  correspond  with  any  other  areas,  and 
which  come  within  the  jurisdiction  of  these  unpaid  administrators 
of  the  law.  The  business  of  Petty  Sessions  is  purely  judicial,  and 
comprises  all  such  minor  cases  as  can  be  summarily  disposed  of 
without  the  summoning  of  a  jury.  But  it  is  not  the  privilege  or  the 
duty  of  attending  Petty  Sessions,  and  dealing  out  immediate  retrib- 
utive vengeance  to  trespassers  and  perpetrators  of  larcenies  of  the 
lesser  kind,  that  makes  the  position  of  a  County  Magistrate  envi- 
able in  the  eyes  of  the  ordinary  Englishman.     As  Boards  of  Guard- 


52  ENGLAND. 

ians  have  spoiled  the  vestries  of  their  authority,  so  now  is  there 
an  organized  movement  to  rob  the  magistrates  of  most  or  all  of  the 
prerogatives  which  they  prize.  The  centralizing  tendency  of  the 
times  is  irresistible,  and  when  the  establishment  of  County  Boards 
has  reduced  the  administrative  power  of  the  justices  to  zero,  the 
ancient  glory  of  Quarter  Sessions  will  be  gone,  and  one  of  the  main 
reasons  of  the  applications  now  made  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  the 
County  for  the  Commission  of  the  Peace  will  be  found  to  have  dis- 
appeared. The  Court  of  Quarter  Sessions  is  a  grand  judicial  tribu- 
nal, but  the  fame  which  Quarter  Sessions  bestows  on  country  gen- 
tlemen comes  from  their  achievements  less  in  the  judicial  than  the 
administrative  field;  and  when  magistrates  cease  to  manage  the 
business  of  their  county,  they  will  cease  also  to  care  for  its  official 
honors.  At  present,  however,  that  is  a  contingency  of  the  future. 
Quarter  Sessions  may  be  menaced,  like  much  else,  with  disestablish- 
ment. Meanwhile  the  Court  exists,  and  the  right  to  affix  the  letters 
"J.  P."  to  one's  name  is  yet  esteemed  a  distinction.  It  is  respect- 
able, it  is  ancient,  it  is  closely  associated  with  territorial  position 
and  proprietorship.  It  is,  therefore,  held  out  as  an  inducement  to 
the  gentlemen  who,  having  made  their  fortunes  in  trade,  desire  to 
purchase  estates  in  the  country,  by  the  ingenious  agents  who  make 
their  profit  out  of  such  negotiations.  Here  is  a  copy  of  a  litho- 
graphed circular  which  not  long  ago  accompanied  the  glowing  de- 
scription of  a  Lancashire  property  then  in  the  market: — "A  high 
social  prestige  attaches  itself  to  the  purchaser  of  this  estate,  as  there 
is  no  resident  squire  in  this  or  the  adjacent  parish.  There  is  no 
superfluity  of  magistrates  in  the  district,  and  the  honorable  office  of 
Justice  of  the  Peace  would  most  undoubtedly  be  conferred  on  the 
new  owner  after  the  lapse  of  a  decent  interval  of  time."* 

This  cunningly  devised  statement  supplies,  perhaps,  the  one  con- 
sideration which  was  wanting  to  make  Mercator  close  the  bargain. 
He  becomes  duly  installed  in  the  great  house,  and  "  after  a  decent 
interval "  is  an  applicant  for  the  honor  of  the  County  Magistracy. 
The  application,  however,  is  not  made  in  his  own  person.  Etiquette 
requires  that  the  request  shall  be  vicariously  made  to  the  Lord  Lieu- 
tenant of  the  County,  and  if  that  eminent  personage  views  it  with 
favor,  the  request  is  practically  granted — practically,  but  not  accord- 
ing to  the  letter  of  the  law.  In  law  the  refusal  or  the  bestowal  of 
the  honor  rests  with  the  Crown,  advised  by  the  Lord  High  Chan- 
cellor.t    As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  the  Lord  Chancellor  who  appoints, 

*  This  is  a  literal  extract  from  a  circular  in  my  possession. 


RURAL    ADMINISTRATION.  frl 

and  the  Lord  Lieutenant  who  recommends.     Cases,  indeed,  are  not. 
unknown  in  which  the  authority  of  these  two  dignitaries  comes  into 
collision.     A  district  memorializes  the  keeper  of  i he  monarch's© 
science  against  the  ratification  of  the  Lord  Lieutenant's  nominati 
or  an  individual  appeals  to  the  Lord  Chancellor  against  his  rejection 
by  the  Lord  Lieutenant.     But,  as  a  rule,  the  system  works  harmo 
raously,  and  in  rural  England  the  doctrine  may  be  said  to  be  firmly 
established  that  the  administration  of  the  law — like  the  admi 
tion  of  other  local  business — shall  follow  the  ownership  of  flic  land. 
Lords  Lieutenant  of  counties  take  different  views  of  their  responsi- 
bility in  recommending  candidates  for  the   magistracy.     Political 
and  religious  motives  have  their  full  weight  given  them,  and  Ni 
conformist  and  Liberal  justices  would  be  at  a  discount  in  a  strong  • 
Tory  shire.     Others,  again,  are  disposed  to  take  the  qualification  of 
magistrates  aspirant  as  sufficiently  proved  by  the  partial  certifica- 
tion of  the  friend  who  mentions  them.     Others  institute  a  just  and 
critical  inquiry  into  personal  aptitude  as  well  as  social  claims.     Oth-' 
ers  carry  circumspectness  to  the  verge  of  caprice,  and  at  the  same 
time  that  they  appoint  a  magistrate,  gratify  a  crotchet. 

But  all  this  time  the  Court  of  Quarter  Sessions  has  been  assem- 
bling in  the  county  town,  and  the  justices  are  entering  the  chamber 
in  which  the  decrees  are  to  be  registered  that  will  constitute  for  the 
•  next  three  months  the  law  of  their  little  province.  It  is  a  long, 
lofty  room,  down  whose  center  runs  a  long  green-baize-covered 
table,  which  manifestly  means  business.  In  they  come,  the  men  of 
metal  and  many  acres,  from  the  Marquis  of  Carabas  down  to  the 
well-to-do  country  farmer.  Here  is  the  representative  of  a  house 
which  has  been  settled  in  the  neighborhood  for  upwards  of  a  cen- 
tury, and  whose  first  founders  helped  to  conquer  the  kingdom  for 
William  the  Norman.  Here,  too,  is  the  gentleman  who  represents 
the  principle  of  plutocracy,  and  who  is  a  new-comer  from  Liverpo<  .1 
or  Threadneedle  Street.  Then  there  are  the  county  squires,  big 
and  small,  a  few  professional  gentlemen,  one  or  two  retired  military 
and  naval  officers,  a  few  clergymen,  and  several  younger  sons  of 
great  noblemen. 

It  is  the  affairs  of  the  county,  and  not  the  administration  of  the 
law,  which  now  concern  them.  They  have  met,  not  to  try  prisoners 
but  to  test  accounts,  and  to  discuss  local  matters,  and  the  chances 
are  that  they  will  display  much  ability,  industry,  and  shrewdness  in 
the  conduct  of  the  various  business.  There  is,  perhaps,  more  than 
one  gentleman  present  to-day  who  thinks  that  Quarter  Sessions  are 
not  what  they  were,  and  dwells  with  admiring  regret  on  the  compo- 


54  ENGLAND. 

sition  and  the  procedure  of  the  court  in  the  fine  old  time  now  gone. 
The  speeches  made,  the  counsel  given,  the  masterly  manner  in  which 
every  thing  was  done,  were  worthy  then  of  the  Imperial  Parliament 
at  Westminster,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  most  prominent  men 
at  Quarter  Sessions  were  the  master-minds  of  St.  Stephen's.  It  is 
not  impossible  that  the  local  court  contained  one  or  two  Cabinet 
Ministers  as  its  active  members.  Probably  a  clear  majority  of  those 
who  did  the  real  work  of  the  meeting  had  seats  in  the  House  of 
Commons  or  House  of  Lords,  and  were  versed  in  the  art  of  political 
management,  which  experience  of  these  assemblages  is  calculated  to 
teach.  It  may  be  that  the  chairman  of  the  court  was  none  other 
than  the  Speaker  of  the  Lower  House  of  Parliament,  the  first  Com- 
moner, and  the  best  shot,  of  England;  or  that  the  justice  who  pre- 
sided over  his  brother  justices  to-day  was  the  statesman  who  had 
saved  an  entire  political  party  from  catastrophe  last  week.* 

Be  this  as  it  may,  there  they  were.  Peers,  Cabinet  or  ex-Cabi- 
net  Ministers,  members  of  the  House  of  Commons,  squires  big  and 
small,  professional  men,  parsons,  a  yeoman  or  two,  gathered  togeth- 
er to  transact  the  business  of  the  county.  The  conference  was  as 
salutary  as  its  results  were  effective.  It  was  an  education  for  many; 
it  was  an  advantage  to  all.  It  disciplined  and  cultivated  the  minds 
of  the  country  gentlemen  who  spent  then'  time  amid  then-  paternal 
acres.  It  brought  distinct  classes  into  contact;  it  smoothed  off  an- 
gularities of  character;  it  taught  moderation,  tact,  discretion.  These 
are  virtues  still  inherent  in  the  institution,  but  they  fail  to  impress 
the  spectator  in  the  same  degree.  In  a  majority  of  English  counties 
Quarter  Sessions  are  not  what  they  were.  The  members  of  Parlia- 
ment, the  eminent  statesmen,  the  Cabinet  Ministers,  will  be  looked 
for  in  vain.  The  naval  and  military  half-pay  officers  are  more  nu- 
merous, and  if  they  are  also  commendably  energetic,  are.  not  gen- 
erally thought  correctly  to  understand  the  genius  of  the  place.  The 
smaller  country  squires  are  a  class  that  is  rapidly  dying  out.  The 
/  larger  country  squires  and  great  nobles  have  other  things  to  do. 
The  representatives  of  commerce  and  plutocracy  have  gained  a  pre- 
ponderating voice.  Finally,  the  sphere  of  the  operations  of  Quarter 
Sessions  has  been  materially  contracted,  generally  by  the  fact  that 
all  eyes  are  now  turned  to  London,  and  specially  by  the  transfer  of 
prisons  to  the  State,  with  only  a  remnant  of  supervisional  powers 
left  to  the  justices. 

*  Among  contemporary  Cabinet  Ministers  who  are  or  have  been  Chairmen  of 
Quarter  Sessions  are  the  late  Mr.  G.  Ward  Hunt,  Lord  Carnarvon,  Mr.  K.  A. 
Cross,  Lord  Salisbury,  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  Lord  Derby,  Lord  Hampton. 


RURAL    ADMINISTRATION.  RS 


>.» 


The  mere  meeting  in  Quarter  Sessions  is  only  a  small  pari  of 
the  work  which  falls  to  their  share.  There  are  still  many  very  im- 
portant matters  brought  up  by  notices  of  motion,  and  young  men 
still  hud  in  the  sessions  the  opportunity  of  winning  their  spurs. 
Throughout  the  year  some,  at  least,  of  them  are  hard  al  work 
on  committees  charged  with  the  consideration  and  adjustment  of 
finance,  with  the  special  investigation  of  county  bridges,  shire 
halls,  county  buildings,  police,  asylums,  licensing,  the  execution 
of  the  Contagious  Diseases  (Animals)  Act,  the  Weights  and  M. . 
ures  Acts,  the  Sale  of  Food  and  Drugs  Act,  and  the  control  of  minor 
local  authorities.  Lunatic  asylums,  police,  bridges,  and  licensing 
are  the  subjects  which  are  most  keenly  discussed.*  Reports  of 
committees  in  all  these  matters  are  read  and  debated,  the  report 
which  is  lirst  taken  being  that  of  the  committee  of  finance.  There 
is  the  county  rate  to  be  fixed,  and  it  is  these  reports  which  regu- 
late its  amount.  The  committee  has  been  ascertaining  the  total 
of  the  net  ratable  value  of  the  parishes  which  make  up  the  county 
aggregate,  and  the  guardians  have  been  estimating  the  amount 
wanted  for  poor  relief.  Thus  there  is  a  long  array  of  figures  to 
come  before  the  justices  in  the  Court  of  Quarter  Sessions  assem- 
bled. It  is,  in  fact,  a  kind  of  local  budget,  which  is  read,  and  when 
read  and  sanctioned,  the  guardians  have  to  supply  the  funds,  which 
are  raised  by  the  rates  that  the  overseers  collect.')" 

Such,  in  outline,  is  the  system  which  it  is  now  in  contemplation 
materially  to  modify.  The  general  arguments  on  which  such  a 
'  change  is  based  are,  first,  the  disregard  of  the  representative  prin- 
ciple in  this  department  of  the  national  life;  secondly,  the  economy, 
as  well  as  the  simplicity,  which  would  result  from  the  substitution 
of  one  authority  for  several.  Now,  as  regards  the  former  of  these 
points,  it  is  the  fact  that  the  Village  Reeves,  and  Port  lleeves,  who 
corresponded  to  our  County  and  Borough  Justices,  were  at  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  period  chosen  by  popular  election.  This  custom  disappeared 
to  a  great  extent  at  the  Conquest;  but  even  as  late  as  the  28th 

*  Roads,  except  -where  quasi-judicial  Acts  are  required,  or  an  adoption  of  the 
Highway  Act  is  proposed,  seldom  give  rise  to  much  debate. 

t  The  magistrates  in  Quarter  Sessions  have,  as  such,  neither  knowledge  of 
nor  any  concern  with  the  sums  required  by  the  guardians.  All  that  comes  be- 
fore them  is  simply  the  County  and  Tolice  Rates;  thus  their  finance  deals  with 
by  far  the  most  insignificant  portion  of  the  local  funds.  The  County  and  Police 
Rate  may  be  only  about  5d.  in  the  pound;  the  charges  borne  by  the  ratepayer  in 
consequence  of  calls  for  guardians,  Highway,  and  School,  &c,  authorities  will 
be  about  2s.  6d.  or  oh.  in  the  poxind.  The  County  Assessment  Committee  does 
assess  the  county,  but  their  valuation  is  only  used  for  County  Rate. 


56  ENGLAND. 

Edward  I.  an  Act  was  passed,  asserting  for  the  people  the  right  of 
the  election  of  sheriffs  in  every  shire  "if  they  list";  nor  was  the 
right  taken  away  before  the  9th  Edward  II.,  on  the  plea  of  the 
dangers  of  "tumultuous  assembling."  As  regards  the  justices  or 
conservators  of  the  peace,  they  were  elected  by  the  freeholders  of 
the  county  up  to  the  commencement  of  the  reign  of  Edward  III., 
when  that  monarch  took  the  commission  of  the  peace  into  his  own 

,  hands,  and  at  the  present  moment  the  coroner  is  the  only  ancient 
officer  whose  election  is  vested  immediately  in  the  people  or  free- 
holders. The  desuetude  into  which  the  representative  principle  has 
fallen  in  county  matters  is  aggravated  by  the  fact  that,  while  the  popu- 
lation is  growing  in  density  and  concentration,  there  exists  no  satisfac- 
tory method  of  taking  its  voice  in  local  affairs.  The  Lord  Lieutenant, 
indeed,  has  the  power  of  convening  the  county  by  special  summons. 
Theoretically,  also,  presentations,  or  statements  of  grievances,  may 
still  be  made  to  the  grand  juries  of  the  county  at  Assizes  and  Quarter 
Sessions.  But  the  first  of  these  expedients  is  only  resorted  to  for  the 
relief  of  public  feeling  when  it  is  profoundly  moved,  and  is  inappli- 
cable for  the  sober  discussion  of  business;  the  second,  the  presenta- 
tions, seldom  get  farther  than  the  court  to  which  they  are  presented. 
It  is  the  multiplicity  of  concurrent  authorities,  and  all  the  con- 
fusion which  this  concurrence  generates,  the  independence  and  the 
consequent  conflict  of  local  governing  bodies,  which  are  the  chief 

,  causes  of  mischief  and  inconvenience.  This  distribution  of  powers 
is  equally  fatal  to  efficiency  and  unfair  to  the  ratepayer.  "If,"  as 
is  stated  by  Mr.  R.  S.  Y/right  in  the  admirable  memorandum  on 
the  subject  of  local  government  drawn  up  by  him  under  the  super- 
vision of  Mr.  Rathbone  and  Mr.  Yvliitbread,  "  one  simple  unit  of 
local  government  were  adopted  for  all  purposes,  there  would  be  a 
single  governing  body,  elected  at  one  time,  and  in  one  manner,  and 
by  one  constituency;  and  this  body,  by  itself  or  by  its  committees, 
would  manage  all  the  affairs  of  the  locality  on  consistent  principles; 
its  proceedings  would  be  subject  to  effective  control  by  the  ratepay- 
ers, and  last,  though  not  least,  it  would  have  one  budget  of  expend- 
iture and  debt  of  the  whole  locality."  We  should,  in  fact,  get  rid 
of  the  perplexing  distribution  of  action  between  overseers,  guar- 
dians, Highway  Boards,  Burial  Boards,  Justices  of  the  Peace.     Sim- 

/  plification  would  bring  with  it  to  the  ratepayer  the  power  of  con- 
trol. It  may  further  be  regarded  as  desirable  that  there  should  be 
a  channel  of  trustworthy  communication  between  the  ratepayers, 
the  people,  and  the  Local  Government  Board,  the  central  authority. 
This  there  cannot  be  till  we  have  genuinely  representative  as  well 


RURAL    ADMINISTRATION.  .-,7 

as  generally  responsible  local  bodies.  Once  let  these  exist,  with  no 
needless  impediments  in  the  way  of  their  good  working,  and  1 

necessity  for  interference  by  the  central  authority  will  be  dimin- 
ished, while  the  use  and  value  of  the  information  which  it  can  fur- 
nish will  be  materially  increased.  The  balance  will,  in  fa 
struck  finally  and  satisfactorily  between  independence  judiciously 
regulated  and  perpetual  anarchy,  from  which  there  can  he  no  out- 
come but  severe  centralization. 

It  is  impossible  to  discuss  this  part  of  the  subject  without  bri<  I'- 
ly  glancing-  at  the  objections  which  are  taken  to  the  di  of 

their. purely  judicial  duties  by  magistrates  who  have  no  special  Legal 
knowledge,  and  who,  when  abstruse  points  of  law  arise,  are  obliged 
to  trust  to  the  wisdom  and  experience  of  their  clerk.  Here  again 
it  must  be  allowed  that  the  censors  of  the  existing  regime  have,  to 
a  certain  extent,  antiquity  on  then*  side.  The  original  statute  ot 
1  Edward  III.,  which  gave  the  right  of  the  nomination  of  justices  to 
the  Crown,  provides  that  they  (the  justices)  should  be  "good  nan 
and  lawful" — skilled  in  law.  A  later  statute,  31  Edward  III.,  or- 
dains that  one  lord  with  three  or  four  men  of  the  best  reputation, 
together  with  men  learned  in  the  law,  should  be  assigned  to  each 
county.  Various  statutes  were  passed  in  the  reign  of  Richard  IL, 
enacting  that  the  justices  should  be  selected  from  "  the  most  suffi- 
cient knights,  esquires,  and  men  of  the  law."  As  a  definite  prop- 
erty qualification  was  not  determined  till  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.,  it 
follows  that  for  nearly  two  centuries  good  reputation  ami  legal 
learning  were  the  two  necessary  and  qualifying  attributes  of  jus- 
tices. Nor  even  did  the  property  qualification,  fixed  at  the  posses- 
sion of  lands  or  tenements  of  the  annual  value  of  £20,  abrogate  the 
condition  of  legal  learning.  And  it  was  a  condition  which,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  continued  to  be  required  till  the  days  of  George  II., 
when  the  qualification  was  altered  to  its  present  form — landed 
property  of  the  clear  annual  value  of  £20,  or  the  immediate  rever- 
sion of  lands  of  the  annual  value  of  £300. 

Those  who  are  dissatisfied  with  the  existing  system  of  adminis- 
tration in  country  districts  declare  that  there  can  be  no  guarantee 
of  impartial  justice  where  the  judges  are  personally  acquainted  with 
the  parties,  and  where  the  same  persons  practically  do  duty  as 
judges  and  prosecutors.  All  county  justices  are  ex  offvh>  guardians 
of  the  union  in  which  they  reside;  the  chairman  of  the  Board  of 
Guardians  being,  perhaps,  usually  a  squire.  The  same  individual 
who  hears  from  the  Clerk  of  the  Guardians  the  particulars  about  a 
defaulter  charged  with  neglect  of  his  relatives,  and  orders  the  de- 


58  ENGLAND. 

faulter  in  question  to  be  prosecuted,  may,  as  a  justice,  in  a  few  days 
be  sitting  in  judgment  on  him.  Again,  it  is  urged,  the  justices, 
being  country  gentlemen,  and  game  preservers,  have  a  direct  inter- 
est in  putting  down  poaching.  But  recent  legislation  (the  objection 
continues)  has  recognized  the  inexpediency  of  allowing  magistrates 
to  adjudicate  in  special  cases  in  which  they  have  a  class  interest. 
Thus,  no  mill-owner  can  hear  a  charge  under  the  Factory  Acts;  no 
mine-owner,  under  the  Mines  Inspection  Act;  no  miller  can  adjudi- 
cate under  the  Bread  and  Flour  Act;  no  brewer  and  distiller  can 
take  part  in  the  granting  of  licenses.  Why,  then,  should  game  pre- 
servers  try  game  stealers  ?  This,  it  is  said,  is  an  anomaly;  and  it  is 
an  anomaly  which  causes  a  suspicion  of  and  disrespect  for  what  is 
sometimes  stigmatized  as  "justices'  justice  "  in  the  rural  mind. 

Further,  it  is  asked,  is  it  in  human  nature  for  an  amiable,  tender- 
hearted country  gentleman,  not  educated  in  the  stern  traditions  of 
legal  impartiality,  to  decide  without  any  bias  in  favor  of  the  man 
whom  he  knows  as  an  orderly,  well-behaved,  sober  peasant,  if  the 
case  brought  before  him  is  that  of  a  quarrel  between  such  a  one 
and  a  dissolute  "  ne'er-do-weel "  ?  As  regards  the  statement,  which 
is  sometimes  urged  as  a  sufficient  vindication  of  the  institution  of 
an  unpaid  magistracy  in  country  districts,  that  the  cases  disposed 
of  at  Petty  Sessions  are  so  trivial  and  plain  as  to  render  precautions 
for  insuring  an  absence  of  biassed  opinion  unnecessary,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  small  cases  do  not  necessarily  make  easy  law,  and 
that  a  paltry  perversion  of  justice  may  jeopardize  the  peace  of  a 
village.  A  well-known  Indian  official,  of  large  judicial  experience, 
once  remarked  that  "  any  fool  could  try  a  murder — the  evidence 
was  usually  so  clear  and  direct — but  that  it  took  a  born  judge  to 
distinguish  between  the  merits  of  a  despicable  squabble  between 
two  ryots  for  possession  of  half  an  acre  of  land."  This  argument  is 
eminently  applicable  in  the  present  instance,  and  it  is  certainly  con  ■ 
ceivable  that  the  presence  of  a  carefully  grained  legal  intellect  at  Petty 
Sessions  would  be  of  material  value.  Of  course  the  obvious  and,  as 
it  may  turn  out  to  be,  conclusive  answer  to  the  suggestion  of  a  staff 
of  stipendiaries  in  rural  districts — going  circuits  after  the  fashion  of 
county  court  judges — is  the  burden  which  would  be  placed  on  the 
rates  or  taxes.  On  the  other  hand,  if  this  would  give  us  a  guarantee 
against  the  costly  blunders  which  are  now  committed — if  it  would 
prevent  the  despatch  to  prison  of  men  only  to  be  released  immedi- 
ately— to  say  nothing  of  the  dangerous  contempt  into  which,  as  a 
consequence,  justice  is  brought — it  is  far  from  certain  that  a  nomi- 
nally extra  expenditure  might  not  mean  a  real  retrenchment. 


CHAPTER    V. 

MUNICIPAL     GOVERNMENT. 

Local  Boards — The  New  Relation  between  County  Towns  and  Surrounding 
Neighborhood — General  Results  of  the  Municipal  Corporation  Act — Rela- 
tions between  Municipal  Governments  and  Central  Government — The  May- 
oralty in  London  and  in  the  Provinces — Town  Councils:  their  Jurisdiction 
and  Offices — Trades  Councils — Debate  in  Town  Council  described — Educa- 
ting Influences  of  the  Life — Borough  Magistrates— Politics  in  Municipal 
Mattel's — Citizenship  in  London  and  the  Provinces — The  Government  of 
London — Possible  Reforms. 

THE  connecting  link  between  rural  administration  and  municipal 
government  is  to  be  found  in  the  institution  known  as  the 

!  Local  Board.  This  body  is  frequently  to  be  met  with  in  what  are 
called  populous  places — districts,  that  is,  in  which  some  of  the 
characteristics  and  feelings  of  country  and  town  are  combined, 
and  which  may  be  described  as  standing  midway  between  the 
Vestry,  or  the  Board  of  Guardians,  and  the  Town  Council.  The 
Local  Board  is  elected,  as  are  the  guardians,  by  the  ratepayers  of 

*■  the  community.  Its  members  are  charged  with  some  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  guardians,  and  also,  hke  the  guardians,  transact  most 
of  their  business  by  committees.  Upon  them  devolve  the  superin- 
tendence of  roads  and  highways,  responsibility  for  the  sanitary  con- 
dition of  a  district,  for  the  removal  of  nuisances,  and  the  general 
provision  of  fresh  ah'  and  pure  water.  It  remains  for  us  to  advance 
a  step  farther  than  this,  and  to  cross  the  inteiwal  which  separates 
rural  administration  from  genuine  municipal  administration;  to  quit 
the  neighborhood  where  matters  are  managed  nearly  as  much  by 
tradition  and  precedent  as  by  principle,  and  visit  the  local  capital, 
whose  authorities  are  guided  at  all  points  by  written  law,  and  which 

I  is  itself  a  miniature  pattern  of  the  realm.  The  village  grows  by 
imperceptible  stages  into  the  town,  and  urban  institutions  are  es- 
tablished almost  before  6-ne  seems  to  have  left  the  properly  of  the 
rural  squire.     This  interfusion  is  increased  by  the  paramount  inllu- 


60  ENGLAND. 

ence  which  some  of  the  great  governing  families  of  England  exer- 
cise over  its  towns.  The  shadow  of  the  castle  or  the  abbey  is  pro- 
jected over  the  borough;  the  political  representation  of  the  borough 
is  often  vested,  and  has  been  vested  for  generations,  in  the  ruling 
family;  the  chief  hotel  of  the  place  takes  its  title  from  the  broad 
acres  of  the  same  great  county  house. 

And  3ret  there  is  a  very  visible  difference  between  country  town 
and  country  village  life.  There  is  scarcely  a  borough  in  England 
i  now  which  is  not  something  of  a  manufacturing  center  as  well. 
New  sources  of  mineral  wealth  are  forever  being  discovered  be- 
neath the  surface  of  the  inexhaustible  soil;  special  virtues  are  found 
to  reside  in  local  fountains;  sequestered  vales  are  constantly  proved 
to  afford  the  most  eligible  sites  for  textile  factories  or  brick-yards. 
It  is  the  tendency  of  towns  of  all  kinds  to  develop  into  trading  cen- 
ters— depots,  each  of  them,  of  some  particular  commerce.  What- 
ever their  produce  may  be,  it  is  an  instinct  with  the  producers  to 
organize  it,  and  to  assert  for  themselves  a  distinct  position  in  the 
great  hierarchy  of  English  traders.  Thus,  the  place  which  thirty 
years  ago  was  only  the  medium  of  distribution  for  local  products 
in  the  locality  itself,  is  now  a  kind  of  petty  emporium  of  the  empire, 
the  head-quarters  of  whose  business  no  longer  he  within  the  bound- 
aries of  the  borough,  but  are  in  London.  The  produce  of  the  neigh- 
borhood, whether  fish,  flesh,  or  fowl,  milk,  butter,  or  cheese,  goes  to 
London  as  a  kind  of  clearing-house,  through  which  it  passes,  some- 
times before  it  finds  its  way  to  the  local  consumers.  Consequently, 
many,  even  most,  of  the  chief  representatives  of  the  local  business 
are  immediately  identified  with  London.  As  might  be  expected, 
this  development  has  largely  changed  the  relations  that  once  ex- 
isted between  the  great  county  families  and  the  county  town.  Even 
in  the  most  remote  districts  of  England  something  like  an  attitude 
of  antagonism,  or  at  least  of  self-assertion,  seems  to  be  betrayed  on 
the  part  of  the  town  towards  its  rural  neighbors.  The  chief  hotel- 
keepers  and  shopkeepers  of  the  former  are  anxious  to  conciliate  the 
good-will  and  secure  the  patronage  of  the  latter.  The  advent  of  the 
county  people  on  market  days,  and  on  other  occasions,  is  still  an 
event.  But  it  is  not  the  event.  Town  remains  deferential  towards 
county,  but,  in  the  most  inoffensive  manner  in  the  world  possible, 
it  wishes  to  give  county  to  understand  that  the  tie  of  dependence 
which  once  bound  them  together,  making  town  the  creature  of 
county,  is  permanently  and  considerably  relaxed. 

There  is  not,  indeed,  in  most  cases  any  real  enmhy  between  the 
two.     In  very  many  country  towns  there  will  be  found  gentlemen 


MUN1CIPA L    GO] '/■: RA WENT.  i  I 

engaged  in  commerce  or  trade  who  have  pedigrees  that  extend  over 
centuries,  and  who  are    directly  or  remotely  connected   with  thi 

most  illustrious  of  their  county  neighbors.  But  though  this  isle 
some  extent  a  sentimental  tie  of  union,  it  is  one  whose  very  affinity 
sometimes  acts  as  the  provocative  of  rivalry.  The  townsman  thinks 
of  himself  as  a  member  indeed  of  the  county  family,  but  as  beloi 
ing  to  a  branch  of  it  which  has  gone  into  a  different  line  of  business, 
and  which  has  created  new  centers  and  conditions  of  interest  of  its 
own.  Insensibly  the  most  unsophisticated  of  country  towns  have 
become  more  or  less  isolated  from  the  purely  rural  districts  that 
sin-round  them.  There  is  a  commercial  traffic  between  the  two — 
farmers  and  cottagers  bring  in  their  produce,  and  sell  it.  The 
great  county  folk,  as  has  been  said,  repair  thither  at  stated  inter- 
vals, though  they  do  little  towards  patronizing  the  trade  snian — a 
fact  which  is  largely  accountable  for  the  growing  divergence  and 
divorce  between  the  two  districts.  And  there  are  blood  ties  as  well 
as  business  ties  uniting  them.  But  the  prevailing  sentiment  in 
towns  is  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  citizens  to  show  that  they 
are  members  of  an  independent  community,  capable  of  choosing 
their  own  municipal  authorities  and  generally  managing  their  own 
concerns. 

The  legislation  which  is  now  more  than  forty  years  old  has  done 
much  to  strengthen  and  encourage  this  feeling.  The  Municipal 
Corporation  Act  of  1835  marked  a  new  epoch  in  the  history  of 
English  local  governments.  The  measure  gave  municipal  govern- 
ment, as  it  now  is,  to  upwards  of  200  English  towns.  It  was  adopted 
by  Manchester  first,  and  there,  as  well  as  wherever  it  was  adopted 
subsequently,  it  commenced  to  diffuse  an  entirely  new  spirit.  It 
brought  home,  or  it  has  since  served  to  bring  home,  the  sense  of 
citizenship  to  all  who  are  living  under  it.  The  institutions  which 
have  directly  been  its  products  have  generated  an  intense  spiiit  of 
corporate  energy  and  freedom;  a  new  motive  has  been  given  for 
local  improvements,  and  a  fresh  incentive  to  private  and  public 
beneficence.  Legislation  supplies  a  continuous  stimulus  to  local 
activity.  Not  a  session  passes  in  which  Parliament  does  not  confer 
some  new  right,  or  impose  some  fresh  duty  and  responsibilities  on 
local  authorities.  Thus,  during  a  period  of  four  years  ending  in 
1878,  the  following,  among  many  other  public  Acts,  were  passed,  ail 
involving  increased  local  obligations: — 

Public  Health,  Weights  and  Measures,  Contagious  Diseases  |  Vni- 
mals),  Canal  Boats,  Local  Loans,  Artisans'  Dwellings  Improvement, 
Adulteration  Act  Amendment,  Explosives,  Petroleum,  i\:c.,  &c. 


I 


62  ENGLAND. 

These  measures  are  in  some  cases  permissive,  in  others  impera- 
tive, but  their  number,  and  in  many  instances  then-  magnitude  and 
importance,  largely  account  for  that  steady  growth  of  local  expend- 
iture and  local  indebtedness  which  periodically  excites  the  unrea- 
sonable surprise  of  honorable  members  who  have  supported  these 
various  proposals  as  they  have  been  submitted  to  them,  but  pre- 
sumably without  any  idea  of  the  cost  which  then*  execution  would 
entail.  There  is  no  appearance  that  this  stream  of  legislation  will 
cease  to  flow,  and  at  the  present  moment  municipal  government  in 
England  is  full  of  infinite  possibilities.  For  its  actual  effects  it  de- 
pends almost  entirely  upon  the  men  who  are  its  administrators. 

Signs  are  not  wanting  that  what  the  Municipal  Corporation  Act 
of  1835  was  to  the  men  of  a  past  generation,  the  Education  Act  of 
1870  will,  in  years  to  come,  be  considered  by  men  who  are  not  yet 
middle-aged.  The  pride  which  many  a  citizen  of  Sheffield,  Birming- 
ham, and  Bradford  takes  in  the  institutions  of  his  town  is  increased 
by  the  fact  that  he  can  recollect  the  return  of  the  first  member  of 
the  borough,  and  the  first  Mayor  of  the  municipality.  It  does  not 
seem  impossible  that  the  time  may  be  coming  when  the  Education 
Act  will  suggest  in  many  places  a  similar  sort  of  honorably  gratify- 
ing retrospect.  Precisely  the  same  stamp  of  man  who  took  an  ac- 
tive part  in  the  assertion  of  municipal  rights  and  privileges  is  now 
engaged  in  the  development  of  our  educational  system.  School 
Boards  have  been  formed  in  many  places  where  they  are  the  only 
really  representative  authority  of  the  district.  By  their  means 
schools  are  raised  everywhere  at  the  expense  of  the  ratepayers, 
who  are  thus  being  educated  in  the  work  of  self-government.  In 
the  towns  where  this  experience  is  not  new,  and  where  men  have 
long  been  accustomed  to  take  a  broad  view  of  then-  civic  duties,  and 
have  already  tasted  the  advantages  of  common  action  and  co-opera- 
tion for  important  common  objects,  energetic  citizens  are  doing  their 
best  to  secure  not  merely  an  effective  system  of  primary  education, 
but  also  of  secondary  instruction.  It  is  with  this  view  that  they 
have  in  some  cases,  with  the  consent  of  the  Education  Department, 
traveled  outside  the  letter  of  the  Act  of  1870,  and  that  they  have 
also  at  their  own  expense  made  tours  of  Germany,  France,  and 
Switzerland,  noting  down  all  that  was  best  in  the  educational  sys- 
tems of  these  countries,  with  a  hope  of  applying  it  to  Leeds,  Shef- 
field and  elsewhere.  Nor  is  it;  necessary  to  suppose  that  in  these 
oases  the  local  educational  jurisdiction  will  always  be  separated 
from  the  exercise  of  more  general  municipal  powers.  The  ten- 
dency is  everywhere  to  increase  the  authorities  of  the  Town  Coun- 


MUNICIPAL    GOVERNMENT.  63 


cil,  and  it  is  even  now  a  question  whether  the  management  of  !!,.;u-(l 
Schools,  which  are  concerns  of  quite  as  much  local  interest  and  im- 
portance as  markets,  fairs,  gas-works,  and  water-works,  i  not 
conveniently  be  intrusted  to  a  committee  of  the  Corporation, 

The  legislation  of  1835  was,  within  certain  limits,  of  an  essen- 
tially centralizing  character.  It  superseded  the  power  of  v< 
by  a  Town  Council  whose  jurisdiction  has  subsequently  increased. 
till  at  the  present  moment  the  Town  Councillors,  subject  to 
authority  of  the  Mayor,  have  absolute  control  over  the  government 
of  a  town.  They  have,  indeed,  to  ask  the  consent  of  Parliami 
when  they  contemplate  any  changes  which  affect  the  tenure  of 
property.  They  have  to  forward  their  accounts  to  the  Home  S 
retary,  and  these  accounts  have  to  be  laid  before  Parliament  But, 
with  the  exception  of  these  general  limitations,  they  are  the  masters 
of  their  own  actions.  It  is  incumbent  upon  them  to  see  that  the 
streets  are  well  lit,  that  all  quarters  of  the  town  are  well  drained, 
that  the  thoroughfares  are  kept  in  decent  repair.  They  control  the 
police,  they  have  the  election  of  the  borough  coroner,  and  of  the 
stipendiary  magistrate,  and  in  some  places  their  recommendation  is 
accepted  by  the  Lord  Chancellor  in  the  appointment  of  gentlemen  to 
the  commission  of  the  peace.  They  manage  the  baths  and  parks  of 
the  town,  and  its  free  libraries  and  museums;  the}'  superintend  the 
markets  and  fairs,  and  levy  tolls  therein;  they  maintain  the  lunatic 
asylum,  the  industrial  school,  and  possibly  the  cemetery;  they  pro- 
vide a  borough  hospital,  and  establish  a  fire  brigade.  They  are 
manufacturers  of  gas,  purveyors  of  water,  farmers  at  the  sewage 
farm,  and  chemists  in  the  analyst's  laboratory.  The  whole  district 
under  their  jurisdiction  is  frequently  inspected  for  sanitary  pur- 
poses; nuisances  are  removed  by  their  orders;  new  buildings  sur- 
veyed, and  old  ones  ordered  to  be  repaired  or  pulled  down.  Finally, 
they  have  their  representation  on  many  of  the  educational  and  char- 
itable foundations  of  the  town,  and  possibly  control  by  the  votes  of 
their  members  the  administration  of  the  local  grammar  school  and 
other  similar  institutions. 

The  best  way  in  which  to  gain  an  idea  of  the  municipal  adminis- 
tration of  the  United  Kingdom  will  be  to  watch  its  machinery  in 
active  motion,  and  this  we  shall  most  successfully  do  by  visiting  one 
of  the  great  provincial  capitals  in  which  it  is  at  work.  We  are  en- 
tering, the  reader  will  suppose,  a  very  handsome  block  of  newly- 
erected  buildings — the  municipal  offices  of  a  busy,  prosperous  com- 
munity. The  Town  Hall  itself  is  accidentally,  not  necessarily,  a 
separate  edifice.     The  rooms  in  this  present  structure  consist  of  a 


64  ENGLAND. 

spacious  chamber  in  -which  the  Town  Council  holds  its  periodical 
meetings,  of  committee-rooms,  of  the  Mayor's  private  parlor,  fur- 
nished in  a  style  calculated  to  impress  visitors  with  a  due  sense  of 
the  dignity  of  the  representative  of  the  citizens;  of  clerks'  offices;  of 
reception-rooms,  and  a  smoking-room;  of  a  spacious  kitchen  at  the 
top  of  the  building,  placed  there  that  the  deliberations  of  the  coun- 
cilors and  the  occupation  of  the  officials  may  not  be  invaded  by  the 
odors  of  the  cuisine.  Under  this  roof  are  the  head-quarters  of  every 
department  charged  with  the  administration  of  the  town  and  the 
well-being  of  its  inhabitants.  Here  it  is  that  the  architects  and  sur- 
veyors, with  their  respective  staffs,  are  domiciled,  here  that  the 
Town  Clerk— an  official  who  may  be  compared  with  the  Permanent 
Secretary  in  the  great  offices  of  state,  the  Mayor  being  the  tempo- 
rary head  of  the  system — is  seated  in  his  bureau,  transacts  his  busi- 
ness, and  gives  the  council  and  the  committees  of  the  council  the 
benefit  of  his  legal  knowledge. 

To  each  of  the  departments  of  the  public  work  there  is  assigned 
its  own  special  committee  of,  probably,  eight  in  number.  The  en- 
tire council,  whence  these  committees  are  chosen,  consists,  let  us 
say,  of  sixty-four  members,  three  being  elected  triennially  by  the 
ratepayers  of  each  of  the  wards  into  which  the  town  is  divided, 
making  in  all  forty-eight,  and  sixteen  being  aldermen,  who  are  the 
nominees  of  the  Town  Council,  and  have  received  that  titular  dig- 
nity, in  recognition  of  some  signal  merit  or  distinguished  service. 
The  different  committees  of  the  council  are  responsible  to  the  gen- 
eral body  for  the  superintendence  and  execution  of  the  tasks  dis- 
tributed amongst  them.  Before  any  work  is  taken  in  hand,  an 
estimate  of  its  expenditure  is  submitted  to  the  council,  is  ratified  or 
amended,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  is  not  to  be  exceeded  without  the 
council's  special  consent.  In  each  committee  there  is  a  finance  sub- 
committee, which  examines  its  accounts  and  reports  them  to  the 
finance  committee  of  the  entire  council.  The  expenditure  incurred 
through  the  instrumentahty  of  these  bodies  suggests  one  of  the  chief 
points  of  contact  between  the  Imperial  Government  at  Westminster 
and  the  Local  Government  in  the  provinces.  Successive  Parlia- 
mentary Acts,  of  which  the  latest  are  the  Public  Works  Act  of  1875, 
and  the  Artisans'  Dwellings  Act  of  the  foUowing  year,  have  mate- 
rially enlarged  the  independent  jurisdiction  of  the  municipalities. 
The  most  fervent  advocates  of  the  principle  of  municipal  autonomy 
would  allow  that  such  centralization  as  still  exists  in  the  relations 
between  the  provinces  and  Whitehall  is  indispensable  for  the  protec- 
tion of  the  interests  of  provincial  communities.     As  to  the  merits  of 


MUNICIPAL    GOVERNMENT.  65 

that  specific  measure  of  new  legislation  which  lias  transferred  the 
control  of  the  prisons  from  the  local  bodies  to  a  commission,  differ- 
ent opinions  exist,  and  probably  the  time  has  not  ye1  come  when  it 
is  possible  to  express  a  decided  verdict.  The  only  thing  which  now 
seems  certain,  is  that  the  local  inspection  which  was  reserved  by  the 
Act  to  municipal  authorities  is  gradually  being  suffered  by  these 
authorities  themselves  to  become  a  dead  letter. 

Such  interference  as  the  Central  Government  exorcises  in  the 
,  municipalities  is  designed  with  the  exclusive  purpose  of  checking 
precipitate  action,  or  a  recklessness  of  expenditm-c  which  might 
involve  generations  of  ratepaj'ers  as  yet  unborn  in  heavy  finani  ial 
embarrassments.  If  the  authorities  of  the  large  towns  only  display 
the  same  prudence  as  the  shareholders  in  a  company  demand  from 
then-  trustees  and  managers,  they  whl  have  no  reason  to  complain 
that  their  action  is  hampered  by  the  Local  Government  Board,  to 
which  they  are  subject,  and  acquiescence  by  this  Board  in  the  pro- 
posals of  the  municipality  may  be  expected  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Some  great  local  work,  let  us  suppose,  is  in  contemplation  or  prog- 
ress, which  involves  the  sale  or  transfer  of  land,  and  probably  in 
addition  the  borrowing  of  a  considerable  sum  of  money.  What  is 
the  mode  of  procedure  which  the  municipality  adopts?  Formal 
application  with  full  particulars  of  the  scheme  is  made  to  the  Local 
Government  Board  to  sanction  the  undertaking,  to  allow  the  expend- 
iture, and  to  authorize  the  loan.  In  a  little  while  an  official  from 
"Whitehall,  having  previously  made  it  known  to  all  whom  it  may 
concern  by  the  medium  of  advertisements  in  the  local  papers  that 
he  will  attend  on  a  particular  day,  at  a  particular  j)lace,  for  hearing 
the  objections  which  may  be  advanced  by  dissentients  from  the  en- 
terprise, arrives  in  the  town.  He  proceeds  to  examine  the  nature 
of  the  contemplated  work,  weighs  the  arguments  which  are  advanced 
for,  and  against,  the  compulsory  sale  of  particular  properties,  judges 
for  himself  whether  the  security  offered  is  adequate  to  the  amount 
required,  and  duly  reports  the  result  of  all  this  to  his  department  in 
London.  In  cases  where  the  action  of  the  municipality  interferes 
with  the  right  of  private  property,  it  is  the  approval  of  Parliament, 
expressed  in  legislative  enactment,  which  has  to  be  gained.  When, 
in  addition  to  this,  a  sum  of  money  is  required  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  any  enterprise,  there  are  two  modes  of  action  which  may 
be  resorted  to.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  simple  expedient 
the  municipality  going  into  the  money  market,  and  starting  a  Loan 
of  its  own  upon  the  security  of  its  rates  and  works,  which  Loan  it 
can  usually  get  at  about  four  per  cent.  In  the  second  place,  resort 
5 


66  ENGLAND. 

may  be  had  to  the  Public  "Works'  Loan  Commissioners,  who  are 
authorized  to  lend  sums  of  money  at  not  less  than  three  and  a  half 
per  cent.,  to  be  paid  off  in  terms  not  exceeding  fifty  years,  to  munici- 
palities, with  a  view  of  facilitating  improvements  in  the  sewage,  gas, 
and  water  arrangements  of  big  towns.  It  may  be  remarked  that 
the  theory  underlying  this  procedure  is,  that  the  Commissioners 
borrow  on  consols,  payment  of  which  might  of  course  be  indefinitely 
deferred.  As  a  matter  of  fact  they  borrow  on  exchequer  bonds 
which  very  speedily  fall  due.  There  is  an  obvious  disadvantage 
,, incidental  to  this  arrangement  in  the  fact  that  the  sudden  payment 
of  these  liabilities  might  in  times  of  great  financial  stress  involve 
considerable  inconvenience.  It  is,  therefore,  a  question  whether  the 
loans  made  by  the  Commissioners  ought  not  rather  to  be  on  ter- 
minable annuities.  As  for  the  security  which  the  municipalities  in 
these  contracts  provide,  it  is  indisputably  sufficient.  Seeing  that 
the  Commissioners  never  lend  more  than  the  amount  of  the  total 
value  of  two  years'  rating,  it  is  clear  that  nothing  but  the  most 
scandaloxis  carelessness  can  ever  result  in  a  realized  loss.  Even 
supposing  that  this  neglect  were  at  all  a  likely  contingency,  there 
would  still  be  the  safeguard  of  that  extreme  jealousy  of  local  expend- 
iture entertained  by  the  representatives  of  the  Central  Government. 
These  details,  which,  troublesome  as  they  may  seem,  it  is  quite 
necessary  that  we  should  not  ignore,  have  kept  us  waiting  for  some 
time  on  the  threshold  of  the  really  gorgeous  chamber  in  which  the 
members  of  the  Town  Council  have  assembled  for  the  purpose  of 
debate.  It  is  the  House  of  Commons  in  miniature,  with  some  of  the 
features  that  remind  one  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  at  Versailles. 
Councillors  and  aldermen  are  collected  in  little  knots,  discussing 
with  each  other,  and  with  their  constituents,  the  ratepayers,  the 
issues  of  the  coming  debate,  in  the  rooms  and  lobbies  contiguous 
to  the  place  of  actual  deliberation.  The  apartment  dedicated  to 
their  purpose  is  an  exact  amphitheater.  Stout  oak  chairs,  with 
stout  oak  tables,  in  continuous  line  before  them,  are  ranged  tier 
upon  tier,  and  last  of  all  is  a  gallery  with  some  half-dozen  rows  of 
seats,  exactly  resembling  the  dress  circle  in  a  theater.  Opposite 
these,  at  the  other  end  of  the  apartment,  where  in  a  theater  the 
stage  would  be,  is  a  raised  dais,  in  the  center  of  which  sits  on 
the  chair  of  state  the  Mayor  of  the  municipality,  supported  on  the 
right  hand  by  the  Town  Clerk  as  his  official  interpreter  of  vexed 
points  of  municipal  law  or  deliberative  procedure,  and  on  the  left 
by  a  couple  of  aldermen  who  have  been  his  immediate  predecessors 
in  office. 


MUNICIPAL    GOVERNMENT.  G7 

The  orders  of  the  day  have  now  been  read,  and  the  active  busi- 
ness of  the  day  begins.  A  good  deal  of  it  is  already  cut  and  dri<  <1. 
prepared  by  the  different  committees  of  the  council  at  their  respective 

sittings,  and  only  waiting  the  final  registration  and  formal  sanction 
of  the  entire  body  in  full  council  assembled.  Then  the  council,  ! 
the  House  of  Commons  on  analogous  occasions  resolves  itself  into  a 
committee,  and,  unlike  the  House  of  Commons,  appoints  by  a  unan- 
imous vote  as  its  chairman,  its  ordinary  speaker  or  president — in 
other  words,  the  Mayor.  A  Bill  is  presented  which  it  is  proposed 
to  ask  Parliament  to  pass  in  the  ensuing  session.  The  clauses  are 
gone  through  one  by  one  with  some  discussion,  and  then  the  council 
resumes,  and  the  Mayor  reports  that  the  committee  has  passed  the 
Bill  without  amendment,  whereupon  a  resolution  is  adopted,  author- 
izing the  Town  Clerk  to  take,  on  behalf  of  the  council,  all  such  pro- 
ceedings as  may  be  necessary  to  promote  the  Bill  in  Parliament. 

Not  much  excitement  can  be  said  to  attach  to  these  routine 
transactions.  It  is  evident,  however,  from  the  manner  in  which  the 
seats  in  the  strangers'  gallery  are  filling,  that  something  in  the  na- 
ture of  a  sensation  is  expected.  Before  long  it ,  comes.  An  impor- 
tant committee  brings  up  a  report  involving  recommendations,  the 
policy  of  which  has  apparently  been  keenly  contested  outside  the 
council.  It  soon  appears  that  the  principle  at  stake  is  complicated 
by  a  purely  personal  controversy.  Mr.  Councilor  or  Alderman  A. 
is  vaguely  conscious  of  a  grievance  at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Councilor 
or  Alderman  B.  He  has  nothing  very  specific  to  allege  in  the  way 
of  complaint,  but  he  has  a  distinct  idea  that  the  comments  of  his 
fellow-townsman  on  his  words  or  actions  upon  a  recent  occasion 
were  charged  with  a  subtly  caustic  flavor,  and  had  the  effect  of 
making  him  appear  in  a  rather  ludicrous  light  to  the  local  public. 

This  is  true  human  nature.  The  Briton  will  forgive  a  direct  in- 
sult, and  forget  a  well-planted  and  indisputable  blow,  but  the  rapier- 
thrust  of  a  phrase,  which,  apparently  innocent  or  unobjectionable, 
in  reality  hits  him  in  a  vital  part,  is  an  outrage  that  he  cannot  en- 
dure. His  wound  is  made  worse  because  for  a  long  time  he  hi 
the  weapon  which  inflicted  it.  At  last  the  moment  has  arrived  when 
he  must  liberate  his  soul.  He  watches  his  opportunity,  rises  to 
address  the  assemblage,  and  is  pronounced  by  the  Mayor  to  be  in 
possession  of  the  house.  The  honest  controversialist  is  too  acutely 
sensitive  of  the  bitter  sting  of  the  viciously  turned  sentences  of  his 
critic,  too  indignant  with  the  accusations  he  can  detect  in  them,  to 
be  epigrammatic  or  even  relevant  in  his  retorts.  Instead,  he  is  very 
prolix,  very  prosy,  and  is  perpetually  wandering  into  themes,  not 


68  ENGLAND. 

wholly  akin  to  the  subject  in  hand.  Reminded  at  infrequent  inter- 
vals by  the  Mayor  or  some  other  member  of  the  assemblage  that  he 
must  be  more  pertinent  in  his  observations,  he  sits  down  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  rises,  hot,  angry,  and  nervous,  to  renew  the  attack,  which 
he  is  firmly  persuaded  is  a  defense  necessary  to  his  honor  as  a  citi- 
zen and  as  a  man.  Meanwhile,  the  occupants  of  the  strangers'  gal- 
lery are  beginning  to  display  signs  of  sympathy  or  disapproval;  this, 
of  course,  is  as  much  in  violation  of  the  estabhshed  rules  of  muni- 
cipal procedure  as  the  applause  of  spectators  in  a  court  of  justice, 
or  the  cheers  of  an  appreciative  phalanx  of  the  recipients  of  orders 
to  the  Speaker's  gallery  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  Mayor  in- 
terposes a  mild  but  firm  rebuke,  the  intrusive  shouts  are  silenced, 
and  the  excited  rhetorician  continues  his  discourse. 

This  is  only  an  incident,  and  by  no  means  too  common  a  one,  in 
the  debates  of  the  Town  Council.  As  a  rule  the  proceedings  of  this 
body  are  conducted  in  a  severely  business-like  spirit  and  with  a  full 
sense  of  that  responsibility  proper  to  a  body  which  is  intrusted  with 
the  expenditure  of  a  sum  not  much  less  than  one  million  annually. 
An  ordinary  Town  Council  displays  an  abilhy  in  debate  quite  equal 
to  that  witnessed  in  the  House  of  Commons  when  sitting  in  com- 
mittee on  some  question  of  domestic  legislation.  Naturally  the  po- 
litical influences  and  advantages  of  such  municipal  training  as  this 
are  considerable.  The  citizen,  who  has  served  his  apprenticeship 
to  the  active  work  of  the  corporation,  who  has  borne  a  prominent 
part  in  the  criticism  and  advocacy  of  local  measures  in  the  council, 
who  has  worked  actively  on  the  committees  to  which  he  has  been 
elected,  has  received  a  valuable  preliminary  training  as  a  member 
of  the  imperial  legislature.  On  the  other  hand,  though  this  very 
training  may  enable  him  to  take  a  broader  and  more  comprehensive 
view  of  the  wants  and  institutions  of  England,  though  it  is  quite 
certain  that  it  will  prevent  his  ignoring,  as  there  is  always  more  or 
less  of  a  tendency  in  members  of  Parliament  to  ignore,  that  com- 
plex provincial  system  which  lies  outside  the  metropolis,  it  is  beset 
by  certain  obvious  drawbacks.  The  man  thus  educated  grows  up 
indeed  with  actively  developed  ambitions  and  with  invigorated  ca- 
pacities. But  strongly  convinced  that  the  provincial  corporation  is 
the  true  unit  of  imperial  government,  he  may  be  apt  to  forget  that 
the  same  positive  certainty  and  precision  are  not  possible  in  impe- 
rial as  in  municipal  affairs,  that  when  the  complexity  of  the  subject 
matter  is  infinitely  increased,  the  method  of  procedure  which  was 
once  applicable  is  applicable  no  longer,  and  that  the  burden  of 
larger  principles  cannot  be  supported  in  the  same  attitude  which 


MUNICIPAL    GOVERNMENT.  G9 

was  adequate  to  maintain  the  affairs  of  :i  town.  Yet,  if  lie  has  a 
native  elasticity  of  mind,  lie  will  soon  adapt  himself  to  the  new  con- 
ditions.    Municipal  statesmanship  will  prove  but  a  transient   ph 

of  his  political  development,  and  he  will  gradually  become  a 
in  the  House  of  Commons  by  the  exercise  of  the  Belf-same  gifts,  ac- 
commodated to  the  changed  circumstances  that   have  secured 
him  pre-eminence  in  his  own  municipality. 

Meanwhile,  what  of  the  functions  of  the  august  individua]  who 
presides  over  the  deliberations  of  the  council-  his  Worship  I 
\  Mayor?  The  Mayor  of  a  great  town  is  carefully  to  be  distin- 
guished, as  to  his  position  and  power,  from  the  chief  officer  of  the 
corporation  of  small  provincial  boroughs  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
the  City  of  London  on  the  other.  Onerous  and  exacting  as  arc  all 
Ins  labors,  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London  has  a  host  of  duties  to  1 1 
charge,  which  for  the  sake  of  distinction  may  be  indicated  by  the 
epithet  ornamental.  While,  in  conjunction  with  the  City  aldermen, 
he  is  the  chief  administrator  of  justice  and  law  wTithin  the  City  pre- 
cincts; while  almost  every  national  movement  for  the  relief  of  na- 
tional distress  may  be  said  to  emanate  from  the  Mansion  Hon  . 
which  is  the  Lord  Mayor's  palace ;  while  he  is  the  one  officer  of  the 
realm  whose  initiative  and  sanction  are  the  main-springs  of  Eng] 
charity,  the  decorative  attributes  of  the  post  are  not  less  conspicu- 
ous, and  in  their  way  important.  Large  independent  means  have 
become  essential  for  the  support  of  the  state  in  which  the  L<>  I 
Mayor  is  expected  to  live,  and  for  the  pageants  and  hospitalities  of 
which  he  has  to  bear  the  chief  burden.  Periodically  he  entertains 
as  his  guests  distinguished  visitors  from  abroad,  now  an  Asiatic  des- 
2)ot  and  now  a  European  prince.  There  are  few  days  in  the  week 
in  which  he  has  not,  clad  in  the  insignia  of  his  office,  to  take  his 
place  at  some  public  meeting,  or  to  occupy  a  prominent  position 
at  some  public  dinner.  In  these  duties  he  is  frequently  accom- 
panied by  the  sheriffs,  but  they  only  enhance  the  magnificence  of 
the  effect,  and  do  not  relieve  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  City  of  any 
of  his  actual  work. 

The  mayoralty  in  provincial  cities  is  a  position  not  less  coveted 
1  and  honorable  than  in  the  capital  city  of  the  empire.  In  small  towns 
it  may  have  sunk  into  disrepute,  but  in  towns  like  Manchester,  Liv- 
erpool, Bristol,  Birmingham,  and  many  others,  much  inferior  to 
them  in  importance  and  influence,  it  is  regarded  as  the  h 
mark  of  distinction  winch  can  be  offered  to  a  citizen.  In  all  th 
cases,  with  the  notable  exception  of  Liverpool,  the  ornamental  attri- 
butes of  the  office  are  somewhat  in  abeyance.     At  Liverpo<  i. 


\ 


70  ENGLAND. 

wliich,  as  the  great  port  of  communication  with  the  New  World, 
abounds  in  opportunities  of  doing  honor  to  illustrious  strangers, 
the  Mayor  has  to  participate  in  entertainments  and  pageants  which 
involve  an  expenditure  that  is  only  partially  recompensed  to  him  by 
the  salary  which  he  is  paid.  Elsewhere  in  the  provinces  the  Mayor 
is  generally  an  unpaid  officer,  and  when  his  yearly  term  is  over  he 
can  scarcely  hope  to  find  himself  less  than  £1,000  or  £1,500  out  of 
pocket.  It  is  the  chief  function  of  the  provincial  Mayor  to  be  presi- 
dent of  the  Town  Council;  and  the  feeling  of  his  fellow-townsmen  is, 
that  he  should  not  sink  his  business  work  in  this  capacity  in  the 
mere  pomps  and  vanities  of  his  office.  The  routine  labors  of  the 
post  occupy  his  entire  time,  and  if  he  happens  to  be  a  member  of 
any  great  business  firm,  he  cannot  hope  to  give  more  than  an  hour 
a  day  to  its  affairs,  and  will  probably  have  to  make  some  arrange- 
ments with  his  partners  during  his  twelvemonth 'of  office.  He  rep- 
resents the  council  and  the  town  on  deputations  to  ministers  of 
state,  while  if  the  Central  Government  want  information  on  any 
local  matter,  it  is  to  the  Mayor  that  they  will  apply.  He  presides 
over  public  meetings  of  all  kinds,  whether  held  for  political  or  char- 
itable purposes.  At  purely  town  meetings  he  fills  the  chair  in 
virtue  of  his  office.  He  takes  his  place  on  the  rota  of  magistrates, 
and  in  virtue  of  his  office  presides  over  all  their  meetings.  In  ad- 
dition to  this,  he  is  a  member  ex  officio  of  every  committee  of  the 
council,  and  is  thus  held,  as,  indeed,  from  the  necessities  of  the  case 
he  must  be,  responsible  for  the  general  working  of  the  entire  muni- 
cipal machinery. 

Passing  to  the  administration  of  justice  in  municipalities,  the 
Mayor,  as  has  been  seen,  is  always  ex  officio  the  chief  magistrate  of 
the  corporation.  Provincial  aldermen,  unlike  London  aldermen, 
have  not,  in  virtue  of  their  titular  dignity,  any  magisterial  power, 
while  most  of  the  practical  duties  of  the  magistracy  are  often  dis- 
charged by  a  stipendiary  officer,  whom  it  is  optional  with  every  cor- 
poration to  create.  The  borough  magistrate  differs  from  the  county 
justice,  in  the  fact  that  he  is  not  required  to  possess  any  prop- 
erty qualification,  and  that  he  need  not  even  be  a  burgess  of  the 
municipality  in  which  he  acts.  The  sole  legal  qualification  which 
exists  is  that  he  shall  reside  within  seven  miles  of  the  borough.  On 
the  other  hand,  various  practical  disqualifications  have  gathered 
round  the  office  from  time  to  time,  at  the  discretion  or  caprice  of 
different  Lord  Chancellors,  with  whom — and  not,  as  in  the  case  of 
counties,  with  the  Lord  Lieutenant — the  ajipointment  of  borough 
magistrates  rests  exclusively.     Lord  Westbury  was  the  first  keeper 


MUNICIPAL    GOVERNMENT.  ~\ 

of  the  Sovereign's  conscience  to  exclude  brewers  from  the  commis- 
sion, and  this  disqualification  has  been  subsequently  (-.tended  to  all 
persons  engaged  in  any  branch  of  the  liquor  trade.  It  is  also  cus- 
tomary to  disqualify  practicing  solicitors,  and,  sometimes,  gentlemen 
connected  -with  the  local  press.  The  Mayor  continuing  to  hold 
magisterial  office  during  the  year  succeeding  to  that  of  his  mayor- 
alty, it  follows  that  the  borough  bench  is  always  occupied  bj  I 
magistrates  elected  by  the  burgesses — a  fact  which  the  champions 
of  popular  privileges  and  the  principle  of  popular  representation 
naturally  cite  as  the  explanation  of  the  general  superiority  of  urban 
to  rural  justice.  For  this  superiority  there  is  a  further  guarantee 
in  the  circumstance  that  the  administrators  of  urban  justice  live  in 
the  full  fight  of  public  opinion,  are  subject  to  the  criticism  of  an 
active  and  inquisitive  press,  and  belong  to  a  complex  body  animated 
by  great  diversity  of  interests  and  convictions. 

In  one  respect  at  least  the  borough  magistrates  are  sometimes 
at  a  disadvantage.  Although  a  political  bias,  more  or  less  strong, 
occasionally  possesses  the  county  bench,  it  is  kept  discreetly  in  the 
background;  but  in  the  case  of  the  borough  bench  the  appoint- 
ments are  habitually  made  from  political  motives.  Hence  arises 
much  rough  criticism  of  a  purely  partisan  character,  which  is  not 
calculated  to  promote  a  spirit  of  respect  for  the  administration  or 
administrators  of  the  law.  The  Lord  Chancellor,  unlike  the  Lord 
Lieutenant,  is  not  the  incumbent  of  his  office  for  fife,  and  it  conse- 
quently happens  that,  as  each  successive  Government  acquires  place 
and  power,  a  fresh  batch  of  magistrates  is  made  by  the  incoming 
Chancellor,  for  the  purpose  of  satisfying  the  claims  of  ministerial 
supporters  in  the  different  boroughs  throughout  the  kingdom. 
Town  Council  debates,  and  occasionally  debates  in  Parliament 
itself,  show  how  the  vehemence  of  parties  is  aroused  by  these  ju- 
dicial appointments.  In  some  instances — and  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  in  such  matters  as  these,  which  depend  wholly  upon  an 
infinitely  varying  social  usage,  it  is  impossible  to  lay  down  an  abso- 
lute and  comprehensive  rule — the  Lord  Chancellor  allows  the  Town 
Councilors  little  or  no  option  in  the  matter,  and  the  corporation 
has  only  a  nominal  veto  upon  applicants,  or  finds  that  the  list  of 
names  which  it  submits  is  disregarded.  To  such  a  system  certain 
abuses  and  disadvantages  are  inevitably  incidental.  It  does  not  add 
to  the  dignity  of  the  magistrate's  office,  or  to  the  popular  regard  for 
justice,  that  the  commission  of  the  peace  in  boroughs  should  be  be- 
stowed as  the  reward  of  political  service,  and  that  new  magistral 
should  be  indefinitely  multiplied  in  consequence  of  political  e\i-<m- 


72  ENGLAND. 

cies.  Three  Town  Councils,  those  of  Leicester,  "Worcester,  and 
Rochester,  during  the  first  session  of  the  Parliament  elected  in  1874, 
succeeded  in  obtaining  a  discussion  of  the  alleged  grievances  which 
they  had  sustained  by  the  appointment  of  Conservative  magistrates. 
On  this  occasion  the  representatives  of  the  Government  admitted 
that  the  appointments  were  the  results  of  political  necessity.  The 
local  feuds  and  mutual  recrimination  to  which  this  state  of  things 
gives  rise  are  at  once  unfortunate  and  humiliating. 

These  facts  will  convey  some  idea  of  the  difficulty  of  preventing 
political  considerations  front  extending  themselves  into  other  non- 
political  issues,  and  coloring  purely  municipal  affairs.  Hence  the 
Cjuestion  arises,  whether  it  is  not  better  to  accept  and  make  the  best 
of  the  inevitable.  Much  has  lately  been  said  against  the  introduc- 
tion of  political  influences  into  the  candidature  for  municipal  offices. 
The  object,  it  is  urged  with  absolute  truth,  in  the  case  of  an  election 
of  a  Town  Councilor  is  that  the  choice  shall  fall  upon  the  best  man 
forthcoming,  independently  of  his  views  as  to  the  government  of  the 
State.  But  it  is  much  easier  to  protest  against  the  confusion  of 
qualifications  than  it  is  to  see  precisely  how  the  evil  is  to  be  reme- 
died. Englishmen  have  a  way  of  thrusting  then  political  beliefs  and 
views  into  almost  every  matter  of  daily  life  and  business,  and  when- 
ever a  number  of  Englishmen  are  gathered  together  they  divide 
themselves  by  an  irresistible  impulse  into  opposing  political  canrps. 
"When,  therefore,  the  charge  is  brought  against  the  leading  mem- 
bers of  any  municipal  corporation,  that  they  carry  the  spirit  of  po- 
litical exclusion  outside  the  political  sphere,  it  is  open  for  them  to 
reply  that  they  are  but  endeavoring  to  turn  to  the  best  account  a 
force  which  is  not  of  their  creation.  There  is,  further,  some  plausi- 
bility in  the  argument  that  if  the  political  issue  was  not  introduced 
into  the  competition,  some  other  idea,  of  a  less  worthy  kind,  infalli- 
bly would  be,  and  that  it  is  better  for  a  municipal  election  to  be  de- 
cided by  political  considerations  than  by  considerations  of  social 
position.  By  identifying  municipal  with  political  issues,  Town  Coun- 
cilors may  consider  that  they  secure  men  more  competent  for  the 
discharge  of  municipal  affairs,  and  that  the  mere  fact  that  a  parochial 
office  being  the  coveted  prize  of  a  political  competition  raises  its 
duties  above  the  level  of  vestrymanship,  and  induces  a  better  class  of 
men  than  would  otherwise  come  forward  to  descend  into  the  arena. 

It  is  not  only  in  the  parliamentary  and  municipal  institutions  of 
England  that  the  representative  principle  is  actively  and  benefi- 
cently asserted.  To  such  depositaries  of  the  principle  of  local  gov- 
ernments as  Town  Councils,  Board  of  Guardians,  and  vestries,  must 


MUNICIPAL    GOVERNMENT.  73 

in  the  case  of  some  cities,  notably  of  Sheffield,  be  added  anothi 
What  Chambers  of  Commerce  do  for  employers  and  capital,  Trad 
Councils  in  some  degree  do  for  the  employed  and  for  industry.  The 
former  bodies  are  organizations  of  merchants  and  capitalists,  whoso 
object  it  is  by  periodical  intercourse  and  deliberation  to  ascertain 
what  is  wanting  to  advance  the  best  interests  of  the  trade  and  com- 
merce of  the  neighborhood,  to  see  that  these  deficiencies  receive 
proper  consideration  at  the  hands  of  the  legislature,  to  commu- 
nicate special  wants  to  parliamentary  representatives,  and  upon 
occasions  to  present  memorials,  or  despatch  deputations  to  the  Im- 
perial Government.*  In  the  Trades  Council  the  principle  of  organi- 
zation may  be  seen  in  a  like  state  of  activity.  This  council  is  really 
a  confederation  of  working  men's  delegates,  for  industrial  purposes. 
The  members  of  each  industry  choose  by  universal  suffrage  a  parlia- 
ment of  their  own,  whence  some  one  individual  is  selected  by  vote 
to  a  place  on  the  general  council  of  the  collective  industries,  whose 
business  it  is  to  watch  over  the  interests  of  labor  and  to  bring  the 
wants  and  grievances  of  labor  before  the  members  of  the  Imperial 
Parliament,  just  as  the  employers  do  in  the  Chambers  of  Commerce. 
Consequently,  the  political  representative  in  the  case  of  every  great 
industrial  town  stands  between  employers  and  employed,  each  in 
confederated  conclave  assembled.  As  he  will,  if  he  is  wise,  be  able 
to  exercise  a  wholesome  influence  with  the  employers,  so  also  will 
he  be  able  to  contribute  much  towards  the  political  and  economical 
education  of  the  employed. 

The  Trades  Council,  in  addition  to  its  periodical  meetings,  usu- 
ally holds  an  annual  dinner,  and  at  this  dinner  one  or  other  of  the 
parliamentary  representatives  of  the  borough  may  be  expected  to 
take  his  place  as  the  guest  of  the  evening.  The  dinner-  is  not  a 
luxurious  banquet.  The  apartment  in  which  it  is  held  is  neither 
too  roomy  nor  too  well  ventilated.  The  diners  number  over  a 
hundred,  and  they  are  very  closely  packed  away.  During  the  day- 
time they  have  been  occupied  with  their  different  callings,  some  of 
them  engaged  in  work  which  requires  merely  the  mechanical  exer- 
cise of  brute  strength,  others  in  the  manipulations  of  the  most  deli- 
cate machinery.  Now  then:  working  dresses  are  laid  aside,  they 
have  donned  their  suits  of  black  broadcloth,  and  in  point  of  decent 
presence,  good  manners,  intelligent  looks,  they  are  an  exceedingly 
creditable  company.     The  meal  only  consists  of  a  couple  of  coins,  a, 

*  Here  again  it  is  impossible  to  lay  down  a  universally  applicable  rule. 
Thus  Unionism,  which,  as  is  said  in  the  text,  is  a  politically  powi  rful  principle 
in  Sheffield,  is  almost  politically  non-existent  in  Birmingham. 


74  ENGLAND. 

joints  roast  and  boiled,  tarts  and  puddings  solid  and  satisfying.  It 
is  consumed  with  the  swiftness  and  appetite  that  one  expects  to  see 
in  English  working  men.  Good  fresh  meat  is  not,  indeed,  strange 
to  their  lips;  what  is  strange  is  the  bulk  in  which  they  see  it  dis- 
played. To  those  who  only  know  beef  and  mutton  from  the  small 
morsels  which  it  falls  to  then"  every-day  lot  to  taste  there  is  some- 
thing of  irresistible  fascination  in  the  visible  presence  before  them 
of  the  entire  joints  whence  those  morsels  are  taken,  and  at  which 
the  diners  may  cut  and  come  again. 

But  their  intelligence  is  not  dulled  by  the  solidity  of  the  repast 
and  by  the  glass  or  two  of  beer  with  which  it  is  washed  down. 
They  are  looking  out  for  a  speech — not  on  politics,  but  on  matters 
connected  with  trade  and  industry — from  one  of  their  borough 
members,  who  happens  to  be  among  them.  What  they  want  is  not 
flattery  but  truth.  They  know  very  well  that  they  are  sometimes 
short-sighted,  and  that  many  of  the  rules  of  their  society  call  for 
amendment.  They  wish  to  be  dealt  with  fairly,  to  be  told  when 
they  go  wrong  and  why  they  go  wrong,  and  if  their  mentor  does 
this  they  will  not  merely  be  satisfied  but  grateful.  It  is  difficult  to 
leave  such  a  company  as  this  without  feeling  that  those  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons  who  represent  large  business  constituen- 
cies have  a  daily  increasing  responsibility.  If  our  elective  legisla- 
tors fairly  face  the  situation,  dealing  honestly  with  the  working-men 
electors,  neither  neglecting  then:  interests  nor  appealing  to  their 
vanity,  they  will  have  little  reason  to  complain  that  they  are  dele- 
gates and  not  free  agents.  The  game  is  almost  completely  in  their 
own  hands,  and  they  will  be  acting  most  unwisely  if  they  neglect 
these  opportunities  of  meeting  then-  constituents  and  teaching  them 
— for  membership  of  the  House  of  Commons  is  not  merely  a  polit- 
ical but  an  educational  resjjonsibility — lessons  of  something  more 
than  partisan  fidelity. 

If  good  citizenship  ought  to  be  the  ideal  of  the  individual,  and 
if  the  standard  of  good  citizenship  is  the  completeness  with  which 
the  duties  of  a  citizen  are  discharged,  it  is  to  the  provincial  capitals, 
such  as  those  we  have  just  visited,  that  we  should  go.  In  London 
itself  the  active  qualities  of  citizenship  are,  for  the  most  part,  im- 
perfectly displayed.  The  Londoner  pays  his  rent  and  taxes,  and 
says  with  perfect  truth  that  these  are  heavy  enough  to  secure  him 
[  every  creature  comfort  outside  and  inside  his  home— good  drainage, 
well-paved  and  well-cleaned  streets,  pure  water,  unpolluted  air,  and 
gas  of  good  illuminating  power.  If  such  boons  are  not  always  forth- 
coming the  Londoner  vents  his  dissatisfaction  on  those  whom  he  con- 


MUNICIPAL    GOVERNMENT.  7.", 

siders  the  responsible  officials,  grumbles  at  his  club  or  Ins  home, 
or  writes  a  letter  to  the  newspapers,  but  seldom  attempts  personally 
to  take  in  hand  the  redress  of  his  grievances.     London,  indeed, 

\  so  hugely  overgrown,  that  its  size  eclipses  the  sense  of  private  and 
personal  responsibility.  The  Londoner  is  a  rati  payer,  a  taxpayer, 
a  subscriber  to  charities,  a  voter  at  political,  and  sometimes  at  mu- 
nicipal elections,  but  scarcely  a  citizen.  There  is  no  sense  whatever 
leavening  the  mass  of  the  nation  of  London,  of  a  corporate  life  in 
which  each  one  is  bound  to  take  his  share,  and  of  whose  responsi- 
bilities none  can  divest  himself.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  that 
London  is  probably  the  worst  governed  of  English  cities,  and  that 
publicans  and  small  tradesmen  are  the  majority  in  those  vestries 
which  are  the  local  parliaments  of  London.  The  provincial  En- 
glishman, on  the  other  hand,  lives  in  a  more  stimulating  atmos- 
phere; he  is  not  oppressed  by  the  same  consciousness  of  infinity  of 
space  and  number.  He  is  a  unit,  not  a  cipher.  Invigorated  by  the 
knowledge  that  action  is  not  necessarily  followed  by  failure,  he 
nerves  himself  to  action,  and  action  begets  ambition. 

London,  again,  is  the  most  wealthy  and  one  of  the  least  commo- 
dious capitals  in  the  world,  for  the  simple  reason  that  only  a  very 
limited  portion  of  that  aggregate  of  towns  of  which  London  is  com- 
,  posed — namely,  the  City — enjoys  municipal  rights.  A  municipality 
for  London  is  what  generations  of  metropolitan  reformers  have  been 
endeavoring  to  secure.  The  vision  that  they  have  before  them  is 
that  of  an  Hotel  de  Ville,  a  group  of  buildings  which  should  consist 
of  the  central  offices  of  all  the  departments  of  metropolitan  govern- 
ment— Justice,  Police,  Drainage,  Gas,  "Water,  Fire  Brigade.  rJ 
would  be  the  harmonious  blending  into  one  organic  whole  of  the 
fourfold  empire  from  which  London  as  it  is  suffers — the  City  Cor- 
poration, the  Westminster  authorities,  the  Vestries,  and  the  Metro- 
politan Board  of  Works.  The  area  of  London  is  divided  into  39 
districts  for  vestry  action  as  well  as  for  poor-law  administration, 

;  and  is  partitioned  anew,  with  no  regard  for  uniformity,  for  police, 
county  courts,  duties  under  the  Registrar-General,  for  militia,  rev- 
enue, postal,  gas,  water,  and  parliamentary  purposes.  Divided  and 
multiplied  authority  means  increased  and  unnecessary  expense,  and 
the  pecuniary  loss  to  London  in  consequence  of  ill-regulated  ad- 
ministrative expenditure  may  be  estimated  at  a  quarter  of  a  mil- 
lion annually,  while  that  upon  gas  and  water  amounts  to  half  a 
million  annually. 

Nothing  more  costly,  indeed,  than  the  present  system  <>i'  Lon- 
don local  government  under  vestries  can  be  imagined.     Westminsl 


76  ENGLAND. 

for  instance,  has  five  Boards  equal  in  the  aggregate  to  only  one  in 
Marylebone,  with  five  administrative  staffs;  and  the  multiplication 
of  vestries  involves,  of  course,  in  such  a  case  a  multiplication  of  offi- 
cial salaries.     In  the  same  way,  vestry  haUs  are  multiplied  for  small 
areas.     The  action  of  medical  officers  is  controlled  by  vestrymen, 
who  are  the  owners  of  house  property,  and  it  is  painfully  significant 
that  the  total  which  the  vestries  have  considered  adequate  to  expend 
in  sanitary  work  for  fifteen  years  is  Is.  6d.  per  head  of  the  whole 
population.     Gas  companies,  water  companies,  and  parish  authori- 
ties, act  in  the  matter  of  repairs  independently  of  each  other — a  fact 
which  is  some  explanation  of  the  phenomenon  that  two  hundred 
trenches  are  annually  opened  in  Eegent   Street.     In  that  hmited 
area  which  is  coincident  with  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Metropolitan 
Board  of  Works  these  inconveniences  are  minimized.     But  even 
the  Board  of  Works  has  no  municipal  status:  in  other  words,  where- 
as Manchester,  Liverpool,  and  every  English  town,  under  the  Muni- 
cipal Act  of  1835,  which  was  withheld  from  London,  can  procure 
from  a  standing  Parliamentary  committee  the  permission  for  im- 
provement— the  application  for  such  permission  being  treated  as 
unopposed  private  business — no  kind  of  substantial  reform  can  be 
effected  in  the  capital  without  the  risk  of  a  long  Parliamentary 
debate.     On  the  whole,  London  has  reason  to  be  thankful  to  the 
Metropolitan  Board  of  Works.     It  has  improved  drainage,  made 
new  roads,  cheapened  and  improved  the  gas  supply.     Thus,  be- 
tween the  years  1861  and  1873,  it  effected  for  the  consumers  of 
the  gas  supphed  by  the  companies  which  it  had  amalgamated,  a  sav- 
ing of  £625,446,  and  the  present  saving  is  estimated  at  £900,000. 
What  are  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  establishment  of  a  mu- 
nicipality which  shall  cover  all  London?     First,  the  jealousy  of  the 
vested  interests,  not  so  much  of  vestrydom  as  of  the  Court  of  Com- 
mon Council, 'which  latter  body  would  have  to  be  reduced  to  forty- 
five.     Secondly,  the  supply  in  adequate  numbers  of  men  qualified  to 
take  their  seats  in  the  great  local  parliament  of  London.     This  is  a 
difficulty  which  was  anticipated  in  the  case  of  the  London  School 
Board,  and  the  anticipation  of  which  experience  has  proved  to  be 
superfluous.     A  seat  at  the  new  Municipal  Council  could  scarcely 
be  the  object  of  less  ambition  than  a  seat  at  the  London  School 
Board.     Thirdly,  it  has  been  suggested  that  a  body  as  powerful  as 
that  now  contemplated — which  had  at  its  disposal  and  subject  to  its 
authority  the  pohce — might  overawe  the  Imperial  Parliament  itself. 
The  answer  to  this  is,  first,  that  the  man  who  will  control  London  in 
the  event  of  a  great  crisis  arising  is  not  the  man  who  governs  the 


MUNICIPAL    GO  VERNMENT. 


i  i 


police,  but  he  who  holds  the  guns  at  Woolwich;  secondly,  thai  expe- 
rience does  not  show  life  and  property  to  be  more  insecure  in  those 
countries  where  the  police  is  in  the  hands  of  the  local  authorities 
than  where  it  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Government,  but  the  reverse. 
The  third  difficulty  is  the  more  general  and  perhaps  the  fatal  one 
of  reconciling  so  many  interests  and  justly  redistributing  so  many 
financial  burdens  over  so  immense  an  area. 

But  if  the  dream  of  a  single  municipality  for  the  whole  of  Lon- 
don is  rendered  impossible  of  fulfillment  by  the  vastness  of  the 
capital,  and  if  that  sense  of  citizenship  and  individual  responsibility, 
which  it  is  one  of  the  chief  objects  of  municipal  government  to  gen- 
erate, must  almost  be  despaired  of  in  the  case  of  a  population  of 
upwards  of  four  millions,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  only  alter- 
native is  the  continuance  of  the  present  regime.  If  the  capital  can- 
not have  one  municipality  co-extensive  with  its  farthest  limits,  this  is 
no  reason  why  it  should  not  possess-  an  aggregate  of  municipalities, 
each  of  them  coterminous  with  one  or  other  of  the  parliamentary 
boroughs  which  are  its  political  subdivisions.  The  dimensions  of 
these  might  be  manageable,  and  it  is  exceedingly  doubtful  whether 
any  thing  in  excess  of  them  would  be.  The  borough  of  Westminster 
has  a  population  almost  equal  to  that  of  one  of  the  largest  provincial 
towns  in  the  kingdom.  It  is,  moreover,  conceivable,  and  even  prob- 
able, that  this  plan  of  grouping  municipalities  would  secure  whatever 
advantages  could  be  gained  for  the  spirit  of  local  esprit  de  corps  and 
competition.  The  ratepayer  and  Town  Councilor  of  Marylebone 
might  feel  an  intelligible  interest  and  pride  in  knowing  that  he  was 
better  governed  than  his  neighbor  of  Chelsea  or  Finsbury.  Yet 
before  even  this  lesser  reform  can  be  accomplished,  there  are  inter- 
ests so  numerous,  substantial,  and  conflicting  to  be  reconciled  that 
the  enterprise  can  scarcely  be  considered  one  of*  the  immediate 
future. 

With  corporate  enterprise  and  private  energy  combined,  London 
is  undergoing  a  triumphant  process  of  rehabilitation.  In  the  Albert 
and  Victoria  Embankments  it  has  the  finest  riparian  boulevard  in 
the  world.  When  the  mansions  which  will  stand  upon  what  once 
were  the  grounds  of  Northumberland  House  are  finished  a  superb 
avenue  to  the  Thames  will  be  opened.  The  new  thoroughfare  lead- 
ing from  Sloane  Street  to  Walton  Street  is  rendered  imposing  by 
Queen  Anne  mansions  not  more  spacious  than  picturesque.  A  com- 
plete transformation  has  been  wrought  in  the  district  winch  \. 
once  called  West  Broinpton,  but  which  is  now  known  as  South 
Kensington,  by  the  mile  after  mile,  the  acre  after  acre  of  miniature 


78  ENGLAND. 

palaces,  whose  lowest  rental  is  more  than  equal  to  a  middle-class 
income.  On  every  side,  in  almost  every  quarter  of  the  great  city, 
something  like  this  is  going  on.  Imagine  the  feelings  of  Addison, 
could  his  shade  revisit  the  earth,  gazing  down  upon  what  once  were 
the  fields  and  woods  of  his  "  Old  Kensington,"  and  seeing  instead  of 
sheep-cropped  meadows  and  leafy  trees  an  infinite  expanse  of  houses, 
each  of  them  rivaling  in  splendor  and  dimensions  the  biggest  and 
finest  that  he  knew. 

Nor  are  the  triumphs  won  by  the  spirit  of  modern  improvement 
in  London  material  only.  "We  have  made  great  advances  of  late 
years  in  the  matter  of  taste.  There  is  visible  in  summer  a  large 
expanse  of  well-diversified  and  well-distributed  color  in  the  admira- 
bly-kept flower-beds  that  fringe  the  road  between  Hyde  Park  and 
the  Marble  Arch.  Nor  is  it  only  the  parks  and  the  Thames  Em- 
bankment which  have  received  a  new  grace  by  the  care  bestowed 
upon  them.  CoUections  of  gay  geraniums  and  scented  mignonette ; 
hanging  gardens,  as  fair  as  any  which  can  have  added  their  charm 
to  the  old  Babylon,  are  the  common  ornaments  of  the  houses  of  the 
new,  and  the  horticulture  of  windows  is  as  much  of  a  fine  art  as  the 
horticulture  of  the  inclosurea  in  the  London  squares.  Kensington 
Gardens,  indeed,  demand  more  attention  than  they  receive,  and  a 
walk  through  what  is  really  as  noble  an  urban  pleasaunce  as  any  in 
the  world  is  too  often,  to  all  who  love  trees  and  know  how  they 
should  be  tended,  a  succession  of  melancholy  experiences.  Before 
London  can  vie  in  natural  beauties  with  such  capitals  as  Paris  or 
Brussels,  it  is  necessary  not  only  that  she  should  be  better  supplied 
with  trees,  but  that  those  trees  which  she  already  has  should  be 
better  cared  for. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

TOWNS    OF    BUSINESS. 

General  Characteristics  of  Commercial  and  Manufacturing  Districts  of  England 
— Humanizing  and  Educating  Influences  at  work  in  the  Great  Towns  of  the 
North— Employed  and  Employer  in  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire— Manchester 
and  Liverpool  generally  compared— Aspect  of  Life  in  the  Cotton  Manufac- 
turing Districts— Newcastle-on-Tyne— Birmingham. 

EVERY  city,  it  lias  been  remarked,  symbolizes  in  concrete  form 
some  great  idea;  and  the  large  commercial  cities  of  the  En- 
gland of  to-day  are  the  embodiments  of  human  science  applied  to 
facilitate  the  processes  and  augment  the  results  of  human  industry. 
The  external  aspect  of  these  vast  hives  of  toil  is  seldom  picturesque. 
There  is  little  or  nothing  pleasing  to  the  eye  in  the  approaches  to 
them,  yet  there  is  much  that  is  profoundly  impressive  in  the  appear- 
ance of  their  outskirts  as  the  traveler  enters  them  by  night.  Look- 
ing forth  from  the  windows  of  the  railway  train,  after  having  en  >sse<  I 
miles  of  barren  moor  and  deserted  fields,  the  passenger  becomes 
suddenly  aware  of  the  flaming  beacon-lights  of  a  never-ending  labor. 
In  the  distance  he  descries  pillars  of  flame,  lost  in  huge  spiral  exha- 
lations of  murky  smoke.  At  first  the  glowing  sentinels  which  guard 
the  portals  of  his  destination  are  few;  soon  they  multiply,  till  at  last 
his  entire  track  seems  to  be  a  line  of  fire.  Above  him  are  the  same 
peaceful  moon  and  silent  stars  which  he  saw  when  he  was  being 
hurried  through  the  desolate  levels  of  Yorkshire,  with  nothing  save 
the  mighty  rushing  throb  of  the  stean.  sngine,  as  it  whirled  him 
along,  to  violate  the  serenity  of  the  nicht.  But  every  thing  else  is 
changed,  and  as  he  is  shot  across  the  giant  bridge  spannis  reat 

river  he  cannot  only  descry  an  endless  vista  of  watch-tires  of  indus- 
try, but  can  hear  the  tremendous  reverberation  of  forges  mightier 
than  those  of  the  Cyclops. 

Yet  though  man,  by  his  all-powerful  enterprise,  is  perpetually 
transforming  the  face  of  Nature,  though  it  is  tins  interminable  Beries 
of  swift  transformations  which  strikes  the  traveler  through  England 
so  powerfully,  the  continuity  of  national  life  and  feeling  is  present  1 


80  ENGLAND. 

unbroken.  This  is  mainly  due  to  the  very  suddenness  of  the  change 
from  manufacturing  England  to  agricultural  England.  The  deni- 
zens of  the  two  districts  may  have  little  in  common,  whether  in  the 
way  of  personal  characteristics  or  mutual  acquaintance.  Yet  as  an 
hour*  and  a  half  will  take  the  traveler  from  the  heart  of  the  Black 
Country  to  a  typical  agricultural  neighborhood,  so,  in  the  higher 
social  influences  dominating  town  and  country  is  there  a  near  rela- 
tionship. The  fact  that  the  great  country  landlord  is  also,  in  many 
cases,  the  great  proprietor  of  mines  and  factories,  is  at  once  a  guar- 
antee and  a  symbol  of  the  fusion  between  the  different  elements  of 
English  life  and  the  diverse  sources  of  our  national  power.  The 
new  is  ever  being  incorporated  with  the  old,  and  the  result  of  the 
process  is  a  growing  identity  of  interests  and  of  feeling. 

If  the  visitor  to  the  large  manufacturing  towns  of  the  kingdom 
is  struck  by  the  gloom  of  then'  atmosphere,  and  by  the  squalor  of 
some  of  their  quarters;  if  he  sees,  or  thinks  that  he  sees,  around 
him  a  race  of  men,  half  of  whom  are  preoccupied  with  the  anxieties 
of  opulence,  while  the  other  half  are  consumed  with  the  cares  of 
poverty;  if  he  finds  upon  the  surface  nothing  but  the  worship  of 
Mammon  and  the  desolating  influence  of  want,  he  has  but  to  exam- 
ine a  little  more  closely  into  the  system,  and  he  will  find  that  there 
I  is  no  lack  of  humanizing  influences  at  work.  It  is  a  popidation 
which  may  seem  to  live  for  nioney  and  material  success,  but  it  is 
also  stirred  by  higher  thoughts,  and  its  dreams  of  the  prosperity 
which  is  reckoned  by  the  ledger  are  abundantly  tempered  by  tastes 
and  pursuits  of  a  more  softening  and  elevating  kind.  The  teaching 
of  art  and  letters  is  not  wanting  to  the  members  of  these  commun- 
ities. Science  has  attractions  independently  of  the  power  over 
Nature  with  which  she  invests  man.  The  workers  may  appear  as 
wholly  absorbed  in  the  pecuniary  successes  of  their  tasks  as  the 
artificers  of  Dido  with  the  walls  of  rising  Carthage.  But  there  are 
the  instruments  of  culture  as  well  as  the  greed  of  gain;  and  if  Man- 
chester is  to  England  all  and  more  than  Carthage  was  to  Africa,  the 
graces  and  ornaments  of  Athens  are  not  quite  forgotten. 

A  century  ago  the  Avhole  of  Lancashire  was  in  a  condition  little 
better  than  barbarism.  Life  was  unsafe;  property  was  insecure; 
strangers  were  attacked  simply  because  they  were  strangers.  Sixty 
years  since  the  favorite  siiorts  of  the  inhabitants  of  Blackburn  and 
Oldham  were  bull-baiting  and  compelling  old  women  to  race  in  sacks. 
The  improvement  which  has  taken  place  in  the  inteiwal  has  been 
confined  to  no  single  class  of  the  population;  and  if  native  refine- 
ment of  mind  has  not  in  all  cases  proved  a  grace  within  the  reach  of 


TOWNS    OF  BUSINESS.  M 

art,  there  is  at  least  a  very  considerable  amount  nol  onlj  of  mat<  rial 
but  of  intellectual  civilization.  Such  towns  as  Manchester  ai  I  Liv- 
erpool may  be  fairly  described  as  being  at  once  capitals  of  Rngliqh 
commerce  and  centers  of  English  culture.  There  ma]  be  in  them 
something  of  that  tendency  to  glorify  the  acquisition  of  wealth  which 
is  so  common  in  America,  but  this  wealth  is  not  exclusively  sought 
for  mere  wealth's  sake.  Many  thriving  representatives  of  Lam 
shire  trade  and  manufacture  regard  the  vast  pecuniar}  reward  of 
their  energy  and  enterprise  as  a  means,  not  as  an  end.  It  builds 
the  edifice,  but  it  is  not  considered  to  crown  it.  The  aim  is  not  even 
mainly  seltish,  and  the  Lancashire  merchant  hopes  above  all  things 
to  transmit  the  fortune  he  has  made  to  a  son,  who  will  add  to  it  the 
graces  of  an  education  and  a  training  which  he  himself  has  not 
Music,  painting,  the  drama,  collections  of  art-treasures,  science,  are 
regarded,  not  merely  as  the  superfluous  embellishments,  but  as  the 
indispensable  accompaniments  of  prosperous  existence.  The  Han- 
del Festivals,  and  the  other  great  choral  jubilees,  are  never  so  suc- 
cessful as  when  they  are  held  in  the  great  cities  of  the  North.  Opera- 
singers  and  actors  meet  there  with  the  most  sympathetic  and  the  most 
critically  appreciative  audiences.  Without  the  patronage  of  th 
cities  the  studios  of  London  would  languish.  China,  bric-a-brac, 
and  the  whole  world  of  antiquarian  curiosities,  find  in  them  their 
most  ready  and  generous  purchasers.  The  books  which  are  read  in 
the  metropolis  are  read,  not  so  much  simultaneously  as  previously 
in  the  large  towns  of  the  North.  Lectures  on  science,  history,  and 
literature  meet  with  hearers  as  numerous  and  as  attentive,  if  not  as 
distinguished,  as  at  the  Royal  Institution  in  London. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the.  only  type  of  prosper- 
ous manufacturers  is  that  of  the  showy  and  luxurious  plutocrat,  with 
his  picture  galleries,  his  well-stocked  cellars,  his  graperies,  his  con- 
servatories and  their  precious  contents  of  delicate  exotic  plants. 
'There  is  an  old  proverb  in  Lancashire — "Four  generations  from 
clog  to  clog  " — which  means  that  the  cycle  of  gradual  rise  and  fall, 
the  process  of  crowning  the  edifice  of  success  and  bringing  it  down 
to  the  dust,  are  comprised  within  the  lives  of  father,  son,  grandson 
and  great-grandson.  The  adage  probably  had  a  good  deal  of  truth 
in  it  when  the  wealth  and  prosperity  which  followed  the  introduc- 
tion of  free  trade  had  the  dangerous  attractions  of  novelty.  It  is 
only  verified  to-day  in  those  instances  in  which  the  successful  Lan- 
cashire manufacturer  pays  little  attention  to  the  education  of  his 
son,  who  in  his  turn  will  beget  a  more  ruinously  reckless  o'ffepru 
But  spendthrifts  and  profligates,  whether  in  spite  of  parental  solici- 
6 


f 


82  ENGLAND. 

tude  or  in  consequence  of  parental  neglect,  are  not  exclusively  con- 
fined to  any  one  portion  of  the  population,  and  the  proportion  of 
young  men  who  squander  the  patrimony  which  they  have  inherited 
is  not  larger  among  the  manufacturers  of  England  than  amongst  any 
other  class.  It  will  be  found  that  the  fortunes  of  which  the  founda- 
tions have  once  been  laid  in  manufacturing  families  are  often  of  an 
enduring  character,  and  undoubtedly  the  tendency  is,  not  for  the 
circular  progress  from  "clog  to  clog,"  but  rather  to  the  translation 
of  a  newly  created  family  to  a  higher  social  sphere. 

It  may  be  that  for  the  simple  thrifty  manufacturer,  who  is  as 
much  a  representative  man  as  the  merchant  living  in  princely  state, 
we  should  go  rather  to  Yorkshire  than  to  Lancashire.  In  some  hinds 
of  manufacture,  minute  care,  judgment,  and  frugality  do  the  work 
which  is  done  in  others  by  enterprise,  courage,  and  capital.  Natu- 
rally enough,  these  two  distinct  kinds  of  undertaking  tend  to  develop 
two  corresponding  kinds  of  character.  We  have  glanced  at  the 
great  cotton  lord  and  mill-owner  living  amid  all  the  pomp  of  wealth, 
and  sparing  none  of  the  lavish  expenditure  which  that  pomp  entails. 
Take  the  case  which  is  equally  real  of  a  gentleman,  who  in  a  much 
smaller  way  of  business — -a  proprietor,  it  may  be,  of  a  gold  and  silver 
smelting  factory — realizes,  by  dint  of  incessant  care  and  unflagging 
personal  attention,  something  like  £3,000  a  year.  He  inhabits  no 
gilded  mansion  with  marble  staircase  and  corridors,  decorated  with 
costly  canvases;  his  drawing-room  is  not  furnished  with  the  choicest 
articles  of  vertu,  and  as  you  leave  it  to  pass  into  the  garden,  you  do 
not  find  yourself  in  a  fragrant  grove  of  oranges,  blossoming  under  a 
crystal  roof,  nor  are  your  ears  lulled  by  the  murmurous  plash  of 
fountains.  The  establishment  is  not  wanting  in  refinements,  but  they 
are  the  refinements  of  a  somewhat  austere  simplicity.  The  house  is 
furnished  more  in  the  style  of  the  thrifty  tradesman  of  fifty  years 
ago,  or  the  clergyman  of  straitened  means  in  our  own  day.  Yet 
neither  education,  nor  culture,  nor  moral  grace  is  wanting  to  the 
household.  Though  the  private  expenditure  of  the  head  of  the 
family  is  probably  less  than  a  thousand  a  year,  no  trouble  or  money 
is  spared  to  secure  for  his  children  the  highest  and  most  complete 
instruction  which  they  can  have.  The  girls  are  under  the  care  of 
the  best  of  governesses  as  well  as  of  the  best  of  mothers;  and 
when  the  boys  are  old  enough,  they  will  be  sent  to  a  judiciously 
selected  public  school.  In  such  a  household  as  this  there  is  no  lav- 
ish dispensation  of  hospitalities,  there  is  little  visiting  of  any  sort, 
there  is  much  severity  of  atmosphere,  and  there  is,  perhaps,  not 
enough  of  sweetness  and  light.     It  is  probable  that  the  family  is 


TOWNS   OF  BUSINESS.  ,v:l 

brought  up  on  the  principles  of  a  rigid  teetotalism,  and  thai  wine, 

beer  and  spirits  are  never  seen  upon  the  table.  It  is  aoi  Less  lik.lv 
that  the  whole  household  is  dominated  by  a  distinctly  religious 
spirit,  and  it  will  be  probably  found  that  the  religion  is  one  of  the 
creeds  of  Nonconformity. 

Doubtless,  whether  in  Yorkshire  or  in  Lancashire,  the  prevailing 
tendency  is  in  the  direction  of  an  increasingly  luxurious  style  of  life. 
As  Manchester  and  Liverpool  have  their  suburban  palaces,  so  are 
the  environs  of  Bradford  studded  with  the  costly  homes  of  Bradford 
manufacturers,  while  at  Sheffield,  a  couple  of  miles  Erom  the  heart 
of  its  busiest  industry,  the  Eccleshall  and  Radmore  districts  abound 
in  really  superb  houses,  solid  stone  structures,  placed  in  the  midst 
of  park-like  grounds,  splendidly  furnished,  highly  decorate.  1,  often 
enriched  with  modern  masterpieces  of  painting  and  sculpture. 

Again,  though  the  traditions  of  primitive  simplicity  linger  with 
a  more  visible  influence  in  Yorkshire  than  in  Lancashire,  there  are 
tastes  and  habits  peculiar  to  the  county  and  common  to  the  York- 
shire merchant  and  a  territorial  aristocracy.  Every  Yorkshireman 
loves  a  horse.  Most  Yorksliiremen  have  no  objection  to  a  bet 
Both  of  these  idiosyncrasies  of  the  Yorkshire  character  are  illus- 
trated to  a  very  conspicuous  degree  in  two  of  the  towns  of  the 
county — Sheffield  and  Doncaster.  At  Doncaster  the  race  for  the 
St.  Leger  is  more  of  a  genuinely  popular  institution  than  the  race 
for  the  Derby  on  Epsom  Downs.  It  attracts  Yorksliiremen  from 
far  and  near,  and  especially  from  the  neighboring  great  towns, 
where  there  is  always  an  unlimited  indulgence  in  wagering. 

But  cricket  and  football  are  the  pastimes  of  which  Sheffield  may 
be  considered  the  metropolis,  as  much  as  it  is  of  cutlery  and  of  iron 
and  steel  manufacturers.  It  is  also  the  capital  of  pedestrianism; 
running  matches  and  walking  matches  are  perhaps  more  plentiful 
here  than  in  any  other  town  in  England,  and  these  matches  pro- 
voke much  gambling.  AH  the  approaches  to  the  ground  which  is 
the  scene  of  the  contest — and  miserably  squalid  and  dirty  many  of 
these  approaches  are — are  densely  crowded.  Hundreds  of  men 
throw  up  work  for  the  day  in  order  that  they  may  get  a  glimpse  of 
the  contest,  and  make  their  books,  or  get  the  opportunity  of  back- 
ing their  fancy.  The  interest  taken  by  the  women  is  scarcely  less 
keen — though  the  mothers  and  wives  of  Sheffield  workmen  can  have 
but  little  reason  to  feel  pleasure  in  the  sport,  for  wages  are  reck- 
lessly squandered  in  betting  and  drinking  on  these  occasions,  and 
the  natural  consequences  are  hunger  and  want  at  home  for  a  Long 
time  afterwards.     The  more  respectable  working  men  of  the  plfl 


84  ENGLAND. 

tell  you,  with  evident  bitterness,  that  betting  is  one  of  the  curses  of 
their  order.  In  other  respects,  Sheffield,  like  other  central  towns 
in  the  districts  of  the  mineral  industry,  shows  but  little  of  that 
thriftiness  which  is  to  be  seen  in  the  cotton  districts  of  Lancashire. 
The  explanation  probably  is  that  the  fluctuations  of  prosperity  and 
adversity  are  within  much  narrower  limits  in  the  textile  than  in  the 
metal  industries.  Lancashire  earnings  are  not  so  large  and  are 
much  more  regular  than  in  mining  neighborhoods;  consequently 
the  expenditure  of  the  working  classes  is  much  more  carefully  made 
by  textile  artisans  and  then-  families  than  by  miners,  and,  as  might 
be  expected,  the  co-operative  movement  has  never  attained  in  York- 
shire any  thing  like  the  same  successful  development  which  has 
fallen  to  its  lot  in  Lancashire.  While  the  balance  of  social  and 
economical  advantages  is  thus  rather  on  the  side  of  the  textile 
workers,  they  do  not  fare  equally  well  from  a  physical  and  sanitary 
point  of  view.  The  great  steel  and  iron  works  of  Sheffield  and 
Middlesborough,  with  the  tremendous  demands  that  they  make 
upon  the  muscles  of  the  workers  in  them,  have  been  instrumental 
in  giving  us  a  far  finer  race  of  men  than  the  textile  factories;  and 
as  are  the  men,  so  are  the  women. 

There  are  marked  points  both  of  difference  and  similarity  in  the 
social  life  of  London  and  the  social  life  of  Manchester  and  Liver- 
pool. Like  London,  they  have  their  suburbs  and  their  clubs,  their 
hansom  cabs,  omnibuses,  and  tramways,  their  theaters  and  music- 
halls,  their  mainly  fashionable  and  their  purely  business  quarters. 
But  there  is  infinitely  less  concentration  of  trade,  industry,  and 
their  representatives,  within  certain  districts,  in  the  case  of  the  cap- 
itals of  the  provinces  than  in  the  case  of  the  capital  of  the  empire. 
The  sense  of  labor  and  of  poverty  pervades  these  great  towns  to  a 
much  more  conspicuous  extent  than  it  pervades  London.  In  Lon- 
don one  may  spend  the  day  in  walking  through  streets,  squares, 
and  entire  neighborhoods,  without  encountering  any,  or  many,  visi- 
ble signs  that  the  wealthiest  and  most  luxurious  capital  of  the  world 
is  also  the  scene  of  the  most  numerous  and  in  the  aggregate  the 
busiest  human  industries  ever  collected  together.  In  Leeds  and 
Manchester,  the  presence  of  a  nation  of  toilers  is  much  more  gen- 
erally perceptible,  and  the  contrast  between  squalor  and  splendor 
is  sharper,  more  sudden,  more  ubiquitous.  It  is  possible  in  Lon- 
don, by  a  judicious  ordering  of  one's  movements,  to  keep  almost 
all  that  is  suggestive  of  misery  and  destitution  out  of  sight.  This 
cannot  be  done  in  cities  where  the  haunts  of  luxury  and  toil  inter- 
penetrate each  other.     The  shadows  of  the  great  factories  and  of 


TOWNS    OF  BUSINESS.  88 

those  who  work  in  them  are  cast  over  the  whole  place,  and  al  cer- 
tain hoars  of  the  day  there  is  no  street  which  is  qo1  more  or  L 
surrendered  to  the  patrol  of  factory  operatives. 

It  follows  from  this  that  in  towns  like  Manchester  and  Liveri I 

the  working-  classes  are  a  much  more  visible  power  than  in  London. 
In  other  words,  there  is  in  these  cities  more  of  the  impressive  asser- 
tion of  a  complex  corporate  life  than  in  the  capital  London  maj 
have  its  working-  men's  mass  meetings  in  Hyde  Park,  and  LI 
tarian  demonstrations  in  Trafalgar  Square.  Hundreds  and  even 
thousands  of  London  artisans  and  operatives  assemble  on  occasions 
in  the  East  End,  and  make  more  or  less  of  a  triumphal  progri  98  to 
the  West.  But  none  of  these  celebrations  produce  an\  thing  like 
the  effect  of  a  gathering  of  Lancashire  or  Yorkshire  working  men  in 
a  Free  Trade  Hall  or  Corn  Exchange.  The  reason  of  course  is  that 
in  London  the  vastness  of  the  adjoining  area  dwarfs  the  signifies!] 
of  the  spot  in  which  the  particular  gathering  is  held,  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  almost  infinite  hosts  around  and  about  who  do  not 
participate  in  it,  prevents  the  imagination  from  answering  readily 
or  vividly  to  the  popular  appeal. 

The  composition,  character,  and  customs  of  the  working  classes 
in  thefr  two  representative  capitals  are  entirely  different.  In  each 
of  these  respects  very  distinctive  peculiarities  exist  at  Manchest 
while  Liverpool  possesses  most  of  the  features  common  to  lav 
towns.  "What  the  mill-hands  are  to  Manchester  the  dockyard  pop- 
ulation and  the  sailors  of  all  nationalities  are  to  Liverpool.  Both 
cities  have  necessarily  many  occupations  in  common — the  flour-mills, 
rice-mills,  oil-mills,  refineries,  and  foundries,  in  which  they  abound, 
as  well  as  the  trades  of  the  ordinary  artisan  classes,  bricklayers, 
carpenters,  and  joiners.  But  in  Manchester  these  classes  seldom 
come  prominently  before  the  eye,  being  to  a  great  extent  merged  in 
the  overwhelming  number  of  factory  employes.  Few  things 
more  remarkable  in  Manchester  than  the  vast  crowds  of  mill-hands 
which  dominate  the  streets  and  monopolize  the  pavements  when  the 
hours  of  work  are  over  or  suspended.  The  manner  of  these  busy 
toilers  is  marked  by  little  superficial  polish.  There  is  nothing  in 
their  address  which  recognizes  the  existence  of  social  gradations. 
To  touch  the  hat  is  a  thing  unknown,  whilst  "Sir"  is  rarely  used 
even  to  their  employers.  But,  bluntness  and  roughness  notwith- 
standing, these  mill-hands  are  a  well-read,  a  thrifty,  and  an  intelli- 
gent race,  good  citizens,  and  kindly  fellows.  Their  dialed  is  un- 
couth, but  they  take  pride  in  it,  and  are  encouraged  to  do  so  by 
their  masters.     High  wages,  and  the  adaptability  of  the  work  to 


66  ENGLAND. 

women,  girls,  and  boys,  give  them  comparatively  ample  means, 
while  improvidence  and  extravagance  are  either  exceptional,  or 
else  come  only  in  infrequent  outbursts.  When  these  occur,  the 
manifestations  are  often  curious,  sometimes  taking  the  form  of  a 
lavish  indulgence  on  the  part  of  men  in  the  luxuries  of  school-boys.* 

The  niill-hancl  is  not  infrequently  of  diminutive  stature,  this 
physical  defect  being  the  result,  in  some  degree,  of  indoor  and  com- 
paratively sedentary  employment,  but  more  often  of  early  marriages. 
A  young  man  of  eighteen  can  earn  25s.  a  week,  a  girl  of  sixteen  14s. 
On  the  basis  of  this  income  the  two  take  each  other  for  better  or 
worse,  and  continue  to  work  at  the  mill  until  the  woman  is  detained 
at  home  by  maternal  cares.  The  pair  will  now  find  it  difficult  to 
make  both  ends  meet,  until  their  chiklren  begin  to  earn  wages:  and 
when  these  in  their  turn  have  arrived  at  adult  age,  they  will  marry 
off-hand  as  their  parents  did  before  them.  The  factory  housewife 
is  saving,  cleanly,  loquacious,  and  very  often  extremely  shrewd.  As 
a  rule,  there  is  among  the  women  very  little  that  can  be  said  to  be 
positive  immorality. 

Theaters,  music-halls,  and  excursions  around  Manchester  pro- 
vide ordinary  amusements,  while  literary  institutes  and  entertain- 
ments are  very  popular  with  the  mill-hands,  who  are  often  great 
readers,  and  frequently  keen  politicians.  Some  of  the  pastimes  are 
sufficiently  primitive.  At  the  fetes  held  in  the  Pomona  Gardens,  in 
Manchester,  on  the  Saturday  half-holiday,  men  may  be  seen  danc- 
ing together,  turning  slowly  round  and  round;  whilst  others,  mostly 
youths  of  eighteen,  will  stand  face  to  face  in  couples,  and  do  a  lim- 
ited clog  movement  to  a  monotonous  tune,  then-  companions  stand- 
ing round  to  watch  and  take  their  turn.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  negro 
tom-tom  dance  without  the  savage  exuberance.  But  it  is  a  neces- 
sity that,  though  the  average  intelligence  is  high,  there  must  be, 
amongst  the  stunted  produce  of  early  marriage,  a  certain  amount 
of  congenital  imbecility.  At  "Whitsuntide  the  mill-hands  go  in 
crowds  to  Liverpool,  but  mix  little  with  the  inhabitants.  The  chief 
object  is  to  cross  the  river,  and  have  a  dip  in  the  sea.  The  ordinary 
dress  on  these  holiday  occasions  is  a  drab  moleskin,  while  men  and 
women  alike  are  much  given  to  bright  silk  neckties,  scarfs,  and 
shawls. 

But  although  in  Manchester  itself  the  masses  of  the  niill-hands 
outnumber  the  representatives  of  all  other  trades,  yet  the  latter  are 
not  so  completely  lost  to  sight  as  in  the  adjoining  districts.     The 

*  I  have  myself  seen  in  Manchester  two  factory  hands  (men)  enter  a  confec- 
tioner's shop,  buy  a  piece  of  wedding-cake,  price  is.,  to  eat  with  their  mug  of  beer 


TOWNS    OF  BUSINESS.  87 

warehouses  in  Manchester  employ  large  numbers  of  "packers,'1 
whose  business  is  the  haling  and  casing  of  goods,  as  well  as  pi  i : 
and  carters.     In  the  outlying  manufacturing  places,  on  the  other 
hand,  at  such  towns  as  Hyde,  Staleybridge,  Blackburn,  Bolton,  and 

Oldham,  and  in  the  scattered  villages,  the  factory  Land  of  the  pur- 
est type  will  be  found,  whether  employed  at  a  mill,  a  factory,  a 
print-works,  or  a  bleach-works.  Here  there  is  not,  as  in  the  chief 
center,  any  degree  of  mixture,  any  blending  with  other  Bocial  or  in- 
dustrial callings.  Coal-fields,  indeed,  are  sprinkled  throughout  the 
neighborhood,  but  colliers,  wherever  they  may  be,  hold  little  gen- 
eral intercourse  with  the  surrounding  population.  If  there  be  any 
perceptible  difference  between  the  habits  and  ways  of  those  resid- 
ing in  the  smaller  towns  and  of  those  settled  in  the  country  villa- 
it  is  that  there  may  be  observed  in  these  districts  all  the  independ- 
ence characteristic  of  the  Manchester  mill-hand  in  an  undiluted 
form.  The  result  of  town  life — at  Blackburn,  for  instance — is  to 
weaken  the  bonds  of  the  friendly  association  existing  between  mas- 
ter and  man  in  rural  districts.  Though  the  operative  may  live  in 
one  of  his  employer's  cottages,  and  call  him  "John,"  there  will  be 
no  personal  cordiality.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  village  of  Conip- 
stall,  in  Cheshire,  for  example,  the  whole  place  belongs  to  one  great 
concern,  every  inhabitant  being  directly  or  indirectly  in  its  employ. 
A  church  and  clergyman,  schools  and  lecture-hall,  are  provided  by 
the  firm,  who  in  various  ways  personally  interest  themselves  in  the 
amusements  of  their  people. 

The  daily  life  of  the  factory  operative  is  nowhere  so  characteris- 
tically seen  as  in  these  villages  and  towns.  At  six  o'clock  on  a  March 
morning,  just  as  the  sun,  yet  struggling  through  a  bank  of  clouds, 
catches  the  high  roofs  and  taller  chimney,  the  loud  clanging  of  a 
bell  summons  the  factory  hands  to  work.  The  numberless  win- 
dows, facing  eastward,  of  the  group  of  gaunt  buildings  known  as 
"  the  mill,"  reflect  back  the  bright  rays  as  with  the  vivid  glow  of 
mirrors.  Beneath  them,  close  under  the  wall,  runs  the  canal,  across 
which,  through  the  row  of  poplars  fringing  the  towing-path  on  the 
farther  side,  are  seen  undulating  meadows  and  leafless  woods  stretch- 
ing to  the  hills  beyond.  Similar  buildings,  the  windows  looking  out 
on  the  streets  of  the  busy  little  town  itself,  face  north  and  west; 
whilst  to  the  south  the  square  is  completed  by  a  high  wall,  above 
which  peep  the  roofs  of  engine-house  and  offices.  Between  these 
latter  the  wide  entrance-gates  stand  open,  disclosing  beyond  the 
lodges  the  paved  and  gravelled  quadrangle  within.  Outside,  and 
at  a  considerable  distance,  seemingly  unconnected  with  the  build- 


88  ENGLAND. 

ings  it  serves,  the  great  chimney  rises  from  a  grassy  mound  to  the 
height  of  160  feet. 

This,  briefly,  is  the  appearance  presented  by  the  exterior  of  one 
of  the  great  factories  or  cotton-mills  situated  in  Lancashire,  in  which 
are  carried  on  both  spinning  and  weaving — the  two  distinct  pro- 
cesses that  convert  the  raw  fiber  into  calico.  Rows  of  neat  cottages 
with  grimy  walls,  but  scrupulously  clean  doorsteps,  sills,  and  in- 
teriors, line  the  paved  streets  without.  Here  and  there  the  gayer 
window  of  a  dwelling  turned  into  a  shop  adds  variety;  and,  in  such 
small  towns  as  we  are  now  describing,  on  one  side  will  rise,  story 
upon  story,  a  huge  factory. 

As  the  bell  resounds,  these  streets  are  peopled  with  a  moving 
throng  pressing  in  the  direction  of  the  entrance-gates.  Men  and 
boys,  girls  and  a  few  women,  the  former  making  the  pavement  ring 
with  the  patter  of  their  clogs,  the  latter  protected  against  the  raw 
air  by  a  shawl  drawn  over  head  and  neck,  form  a  crowd  too  eager 
to  reach  the  work  of  the  day  for  idle  talk.  Nevertheless,  there  is 
not  wanting  an  occasional  greeting  to  the  housewife,  who,  through 
the  open  cottage  door  with  its  footboard,  is  seen  busy  in  the  duties 
that  have  taken  her  away  front  the  occupation  of  girlhood  and  early 
married  days.  The  bright  fire,  the  clean  children,  the  chest  of 
drawers  with  its  painted  tray  and  array  of  books,  the  special  pride 
of  the  good  man  who  has  just  risen  to  join  the  human  stream  with- 
out, reveal  something  of  the  comfort  of  the  mill-hand's  home. 

But  the  entrance  is  reached,  and  pressing  past  the  lodge,  not 
without  a  friendly  word  to  overlooker,  foreman,  or  the  watchful 
timekeeper,  the  crowd  disperses  across  the  graveled  square.  Whilst 
some  go  to  the  warehouse,  the  greater  portion  enter  the  tall  build- 
ings where  the  spinning  is  carried  on,  and  others,  these  chiefly 
women,  cross  to  the  three-storied  building  ending  in  the  low  weav- 
ing-sheds with  their  pointed  semi-glass  roofs. 

"Within,  the  preliminaries  are  quickly  completed.  The  operatives 
have  got  rid  of  their  superfluous  clothing.  In  the  various  rooms 
for  scutching,  lapping,  carding,  and  roving  the  raw  fiber  which  lies 
in  a  snowy  heap  in  the  first  of  them,  the  spinner  or  minder  has  seen 
that  his  mules  and  frames  are  in  working  order,  and  stands  in  the 
narrow  path  which  divides  and  gives  access  to  the  different  ma- 
chines. In  like  manner,  in  the  shed  the  weaver  is  at  her  post  be- 
side the  power-looms  that  are  her  care.  In  both  places,  the  space 
above  is  full  of  driving-wheels  and  enormous  leathern  bands  to 
transmit  the  motive  power.  In  the  engine-house,  through  whose 
long  windows  beam,  crank,  and  fly-wheel  of  the  machinery  within 


TOWNS    OF  BUSINESS. 

are  visible,  all  is  ready;  and  as  the  finger  of  (ho  clock  touches  the 
hour,  the  first  labored  beat  of  the  engine  proclaims  thai  the  work 
of  the  day  has  commenced.     Inside  the  factory,  (he  gianl  strength 

that  has  lain  quiescent  is,  all  at  once,  in  motion.  In  mid  ail  the 
great  leathern  bands  commence  their  endless  course.  Below,  mi 
and  frames  move  quickly  backwards  and  forwards  along  the  ground, 
cylinders  revolve  at  various  speeds,  the  countless  spindles  and  bob- 
bins turn  round  and  round;  whilst  in  the  other  department  the 
looms  work  up  and  down  as  the  quick  shuttle  flies  from  side  to  ride. 
In  the  one  place  the  minder  narrowly  watches  the  machines  tor 
which  he  is  specially  responsible,  and  in  the  other,  the  weaver  is 
equally  as  careful  to  control  the  action  when  any  hitch  shall  threat  D 
a  flaw  in  the  work;  whilst  their  subordinates  attend  to  their  indi- 
vidual tasks. 

And  so,  with  a  short  interval  for  breakfast,  the  absorbing  pro- 
cess continues  until  the  dinner-hour,  when  the  mill  is  deserted  and 
the  streets  are  again  enlivened  by  a  throng  now  inclined  to  linger 
and  chatter,  and,  in  their  broad  dialect,  crack  their  rough  jokes. 
Home  has  been  reached,  dinner  eaten,  the  comforting  pipe  enjoyed 
.  by  the  men  as  they  saunter  back,  and  once  more  work  begins,  to 
''  cease  at  six  o'clock.  Then,  as  the  clock  chimes,  the  busy  hive  jours 
out  its  workers — weary  it  may  well  be,  but  yet  content  as  they  plod 
homewards  to  the  welcome  that  awaits  them  as  the  fairly-ear 
reward  of  a  long  day  of  watchful  tod. 

Of  Liverpool  the  marked  feature  in  the  industrial  population  is, 
as  has  already  been  said,  the  nautical  class.  Quite  distinct  from  the 
longshore  men  are  the  sailors — many  of  them  foreigners— engaged 
in  the  real  mercantile  marine  for  long  voyages.  This  is  scarcely  a 
class  of  persons  calculated  to  add  respectability  to  a  neighborhood; 
and  though  a  Sailors'  Home  has  been  provided  for  them,  and  oth  r 
attempts  to  reform  them  have  been  made,  low  public-houses,  disrepu- 
table lodging-houses,  and  other  noisome  dens  still  nourish.  Another 
prominent  community  in  Liverpool  are  the  Irish,  who  inhabit  a  neigh- 
borhood of  their  own,  of  which  the  center  is  the  locally  notorious 
Sawney  Pope  Street,  a  spot  enlivened  by  perpetual  disturbani 
The  Lish  in  Liverpool,  for  a  time,  increased  at  a  very  rapid  rate. 
As  each  new  batch  of  immigrants  found  employment,  they  were 
followed  by  friends  and  relations  from  then-  native  land.  Bui  as 
Ireland  has  grown  more  prosperous,  and  an  Irish  middle  class  bas 
begun  to  develop  itself,  this  movement  has  been  arrested,  and  it 
has  ceased  to  be  probable  that  the  Irish  may  constitute  a  pr<  pon- 
derating  element  in  the  Liverpool  population.     Another  point  to  be 


90  ENGLAND. 

noticed  among  tlie  Liverpool  working  classes  is  the  prevalence  of 
the  representatives  of  unskilled  labor.  Since  the  city  on  the  Mersey 
is  the  depot  and  point  of  departure  of  imports  and  exports,  it  follows 
that  the  unloading  and  loading  of  ships  and  storing  of  warehouses 
is  the  principal  labor,  employing  lumpers,  cotton-porters,  and  carters. 
No  technical  skill  is  required  in  this  industry,  a  fact  which,  combined 
with  the  direct  steam  communication  with  Ireland,  is  mainly  respon- 
sible for  the  many  immigrants  froni  the  other  side  of  St.  George's 
Channel.  Liverpool,  as  statistics  and  reports  show,  has  by  no  means 
a  good  character  for  morality  and  decorum.  But  in  judging  of  this 
evidence,  it  is  always  necessary  to  remember  that  the  repressive 
measures  enforced  by  the  Liverpool  magistrates  are  exceptionally 
severe,  and  that  the  police  often  apprehend  upon  charges  which 
would  be  deemed  trivial  elsewhere.  The  shipwrights  of  Liverpool, 
who  form  a  distinct  class,  are  an  industrious,  intelligent  body  of 
men.  One  or  two  regiments  of  volunteer  artillery,  which  in  effi- 
ciency have  few  equals  elsewhere,  are  exclusively  recruited  from 
then'  number.  "With  these  exceptions,  the  working  classes  of  Liv- 
erpool have  no  characteristics  that  separate  them  from  the  work- 
ing classes  of  other  large  towns.  Theaters  and  music-halls,  both 
thronged  nightly  with  enthusiastic  but  more  or  less  critical  audi- 
ences, provide  the  staple  of  their  amusements.  The  town  has  been 
beautified  by  the  extension  of  a  belt  of  fine  parks,  well  wooded  and 
admirably  kept.  Here  in  summer  the  inhabitants  find  their  rec- 
reations, whilst  there  are  other  opportunities  of  enjoyment  in  the 
excursions  easily  made  by  the  cheap  ferries  to  the  Cheshire  side 
of  the  river,  where  at  Eastham  rural,  and  at  New  Brighton  seaside 
pleasures  are  offered. 

As  Manchester  and  Liverpool,  whether  in  respect  of  their  work- 
ing classes,  or  their  superiors  in  the  social  scale,  differ  from  London, 
so  they  each  of  them  differ  from  the  other.  Thus,  although  therf 
are  in  Manchester  few  families  whose  connection  with  the  town  in 
any  notable  way  could  be  traced  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  cen- 
tury, yet  that  city  has  more  hereditary  worthies  still  associated  with 
it  than  Liverpool;  in  which  latter  place,  in  the  course  of  a  genera- 
tion, not  only  are  there  new  faces,  but  changed  names.  There  is 
an  obvious  reason  for  this  difference.  Success  in  manufacture — the 
kind  of  success  that  is  achieved  in  Manchester — implies  extensive 
property  in  building,  land,  and  plant,  a  property  not  only  produc- 
tive but  readily  transmissible  from  father  to  son.  In  the  operations 
of  mercantile  business,  of  which  Liverpool  is  the  seat,  there  is  less 
permanence  and  more  vicissitude.     The  builders  of  a  fortune  bid 


TOWNS    OF   BUSINESS.  \\\ 

farewell  to  the  place  in  which  thej  have  buili  it,  or,  dying,  have  do 
freehold  to  bequeath,  but  simply  money  and  credit  A  di  a  trous 
fluctuation  sets  in,  trade  is  had,  and  the  m<  nej  vanishes.  This 
distinction  between  mere  buying  and  Belling  and  manufacture  is 
inevitable,  and  will  always  continue.  Again,  Liverpool,  one  of  the 
most  cosmopolitan  capitals  in  the  world,  ma\  be  called  the  Marseilles 
of  England.  In  a  Liverpool  morning  paper  a  name  such  as  Manuel 
Garcia  or  Christino  Nicopoulos,  sure  evidence  of  the  nationality 
of  its  owner,  will  almost  certainly  be  found  figuring  in  the  lists  of 
police-court  celebrities  of  the  previous  day.  Ascending  in  the  social 
scale,  there  will  be  seen  in  Liverpool  sum.  tiling  like  a  reflection  of 
the  mixture  of  races  which  is  visible  in  the  migratory  nautical  popu- 
lation. From  Scotland  and  Ireland,  from  the  United  Stat<  J,  Erom 
all  parts  of  the  continents  of  Europe  and  Asia,  there  is  a  perpetual 
stream  of  new  blood  circulating  through  the  community.  The  aliens 
and  foreigners  soon  become  permanent  settlers,  and  the  old  Liver- 
pool families  are  merged  in  the  hybrid  mass.  This  infusion  of  new- 
blood  occurs  to  a  very  much  smaller  extent  in  Manchester.  Germans 
and  Levantine  Greeks  are  the  most  conspicuous  among  the  strangers 
who  make  that  city  their  home.  But  these  seldom  become  assimi- 
lated to  the  native  population.  The  latter  in  particular  Form  a 
distinct  class,  perpetuating  the  peculiar  habits  of  then  native  land 
in  the  country  of  their  adoption. 

A  healthy,  quickening,  and  instructive  element  in  Liverpool  soci- 
ety is  to  be  found  in  the  number  of  gentlemen  who  having  been 
abroad  in  India,  North  and  South  America,  China,  the  colonies,  and 
elsewhere  during  pai"t  of  then  lives,  come  to  end  their  days  on  the 
banks  of  the  Mersey.  Often,  as  part  of  Lis  commercial  trainu 
a  Liverpool  youth  will  pass  some  years  in  a  foreign  laud,  necessarily 
having  his  wits  sharpened  in  the  process.  The  very  different  char- 
acter of  the  Manchester  trade  affords  only  a  few  accidental  experi- 
ences like  these.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  more  men,  young 
and  old,  at  Manchester  who  have  received  a  public  school  and  uni- 
versity education  than  at  Liverpool.  The  very  best  society  in  Man- 
chester or  Liverpool  is  not  more  accessible  to  residents  than  in 
London,  and  is  very  seldom  entered  by  families  who  have  made  for- 
tunes by  shopkeeping,  never  by  those  whose  fathers  have  been  shi  >]»- 
keepers  in  the  town  itself.  The  social  antecedents  of  strangers  are 
less  critically  examined.  Military  or  naval  officers,  clergymen,  and 
barristers,  are  general  favorites,  and  in  Liverpool  there  has  been  of 
late  years  a  perceptible  importation  of  scions  of  noble  houses  who 
have  taken  to  trade. 


92  ENGLAND. 

There  has  existed  in  Liverpool  for  more  than  half  a  centmy  a 
select  and  fashionable  institution  framed  after  the  model  of  the  old 
Almack's  of  London,  known  as  the  Wellington  Rooms.  Election  to 
it  is  by  ballot;  the  claims  and  positions  of  candidates  are  closely 
scrutinized.  To  be  a  member  of  the  society  is  to  obtain  a  sort  of 
hall-mark  of  social  consideration.  Dances  are  given  once  a  fort- 
night during  the  winter,  and  the  building  is  used  for  no  other  pur- 
pose. Parties  from  the  different  noblemen's  seats  in  the  neighbor- 
hood attend  frequently,  and  always  in  the  race  week.  In  Manchester 
an  attempt  of  the  same  kind  has  been  made  in  a  series  of  balls  given 
at  the  Free  Trade  Hall,  but  the  experiment  has  not  proved  equally 
successful.  There  are  other  social  attractions  possessed  by  Liver- 
pool which  in  Manchester  are  wanting.  The  Manchester  races  are 
entirely  given  up  to  the  mill-hands;  but  at  Liverpool  the  Grand 
National,  the  Autumn  Cup,  and  the  Altcar  Racing  Meeting  collect 
brilliant  assemblages  of  fashionable  sportsmen  and  the  fair  sex. 
Liverpool  attractions  are  further  increased  by  its  several  yacht 
clubs;  the  River  Mersey  thus  helping  to  give  the  town  a  social 
and  fashionable  distinction  of  its  own  which  Manchester  lacks. 

Liverpool  and  Manchester  toilets  are  equally  costly  matters. 
The  gentlemen  of  both  places,  ambitious  of  the  reputation  of  dan- 
dies, patronize  London  tailors;  but  ladies'  dresses  are  abundantly 
provided  by  local  modistes,  and  it  is  only  occasionally  that  cos- 
tumes are  procured  from  London  or  Paris.  In  consequence  of  com- 
mercial vicissitudes  and  a  floating  population,  Liverpool  has  never 
had  the  wealth  of  Manchester.  Liverpool  life  has  been  showy,  Man- 
chester extravagance  has  been  marked  by  a  certain  solidity.  The 
ball-rooms  of  Liverpool  are  always  excellent  and  enjoyable.  The 
invitations  are  restricted  to  dancers,  the  music  and  appointments  are 
good,  there  is  plenty  of  available  room.  The  form  of  entertainment 
most  popular  in  Manchester  society  is  the  dinner-party,  at  which 
London  hours  are  kejDt,  and  the  fruit  and  other  table  luxuries  are 
purchased  at  London  prices.  Probably  there  is  little  to  choose  be- 
tween the  dinner  parties  of  the  two  northern  cities.  In  both  the 
wines  produced  will  usually  be  of  high  excellence,  as  the  habit  of 
keeping  an  extensive  cellar  obtains  widely  among  those  whose  hos- 
pitalities are  upon  any  considerable  scale.  A  two  years'  supply  of 
wine  matured  for  drinking,  in  addition  to  wine  in  the  process  of 
maturing,  is  usually  to  be  found  in  the  house  of  the  Manchester  or 
Liverpool  Amphitryon. 

Of  late  years,  private  carriages  have  become  almost  universal 
amongst  the  richer  classes  in  both  places.     In  each  of  them  the 


TOWNS   OF  BUSINESS. 

elite  of  society  usually  inhabit  fine  houses  with  conservatories       i 

elaborate  gardens  in  the  outskirts,  though   in    Liverpool  Bonn 
those  who  are  called  "  the  best  people  "  live  in  the  town.     Many  of 

the  richer  families  have  houses  in  London,  to  which  thej  come  for 
the  season;  and  some  dwell  all  the  year  round  at  a  c  able 

distance  from  the  capital  in  which  their  business  is,  in  the  rural 
tricts  of  Cumberland  and  Staffordshire.  The  risil  to  London  late 
in  the  season  is  equally  common  to  the  local  aristocra  ■  of  either 
town,  as  is  the  trip  on  the  Continent,  often  extended  as  far  a 
Fishing,  shooting,  and  hunting  are  the  regular  pastinu  a  of  the  gen- 
tlemen; Liverpool  has  two  local  packs  o\  harriers,  and,  as  has  been 
said,  its  yacht  clubs  as  well.  Cricket  and  football,  which  are  com- 
mon among  all  classes  of  the  youths  of  manufacturing  and  commi  r- 
cial  England,  are  played  as  much  by  the  IrweU  as  the  Mersey,  Man- 
chester being  undoubtedly  superior  in  cricket,  while  th<  palm  at, 
football  must  be  given  to  Liverpool. 

The  change  of  the  hours  of  business  in  the  two  cities  has  resulted 
in  a  species  of  social  revolution.  Formerly  merchants  were  at  their 
work  by  nine  in  the  morning,  and  seldom  left  it  till  eight  or  nine  at, 
night;  now  the  universal  closing  hour  in  Liverpool  is  live  p.  m.;  and 
hi  Manchester,  although  the  warehouses  may  be  open  till  seven,  the 
principals  leave  about  the  same  time.  This  alteration  has  naturally 
proved  favorable  to  the  development  of  club  lit",  which  is  marked 
by  special  features  of  its  own  in  the  two  places.  In  Manchester  there 
are  many  clubs  of  which  the  chief — a  very  large  one,  and  a  fail-  spe- 
cimen of  the  remainder — is  the  "Union."  Here  the  old  practice  oi 
dining  early  is  still  in  force.  Between  one  and  two,  warehouses 
are  universally  deserted,  and  the  club  is  full,  though  the  early  club 
dinner  of  some  members  may  be  only  the  substantial  lunch  of  a  tew, 
which  is  to  support  them  during  the  interval  that  has  to  elapse  be- 
fore a  seven  or  eight  o'clock  dinner  at  home.  Formerly  the  wealth- 
iest manufacturers  coming  in  from  the  country  on  market-days 
(Tuesdays  and  Fridays)  were  accustomed  to  dine  at  inn  ordin 
between  one  and  two,  when,  after  dinner,  spirit-bottles  would  be 
put  on  the  table,  and  long  clay  pipes  produced.  But  to-day  the 
club  coffee-room  has  taken  the  place  of  the  inn  ordinary.  On  the 
market-days  business  with  many  is  supposed  to  be  over  at  dinner- 
time, and  cards  and  billiards  are  played  during  the  afternoon,  but 
on  other  days,  and  almost  invariably  in  the  evening,  the  Manch 
club-houses  are  deserted,  except  at  this  mid-day  interval.  In 
erpool  it  is  very  different.  The  "Palatine,"  a  small  ami  Belect  dub, 
which  takes  precedence  of  all  the  others,  has  comparatively  fe* 


94  ENGLAND. 

quenters  at  the  luncheon-hour.  At  seven  or  eight  o'clock  it  is  always 
full,  and  both  after  and  before  dinner  there  is  plenty  of  card-play- 
ing and  billiards.  Loungers  fresh  from  the  theater  drop  in,  and  it 
is  much  frequented  by  officers  of  the  garrison,  who,  as  well  as  the 
leading  barristers  of  the  Northern  Circuit,  are  honorary  members. 
Altogether  this  club  endeavors,  not  unsuccessfully,  to  imitate  the 
clubs  of  London.  If  there  is  thus  more  of  social  pretension  at  Liv- 
erpool than  at  Manchester,  such  pretension  is  not  without  its  influ- 
ence on  social  education.  Clubs  are  the  cradle  of  sound  public 
opinion  in  matters  appertaining  to  manners,  if  not  morals.  Rowdy- 
ism and  club  life  cannot  co-exist.  It  should  be  added  that  the  Gun 
Club  and  the  Polo  Club,  both  recently  thoroughly  established,  make 
the  resemblance  between  Liverpool  and  London  still  closer. 

It  is  a  marked  peculiarity  of  the  Lancashire  mill-owner,  educated 
and  traveled  though  he  be,  to  affect  a  certain  humility  or  homeli- 
ness in  his  native  place.  He  will  know  all  his  mill-hands  personally, 
call  them  by  their  Christian  names,  nor  be  offended  when  he  is  sa- 
luted "  How  are  you,  John  ?  "  in  return — a  more  respectful  address, 
as  has  been  said,  not  commending  itself  to  the  employed.  The  art 
connoisseur  of  Manchester — -his  cultivation  often  no  mere  pretence 
— will  in  business  affect  the  Lancashire  patois:  will  answer  his  neigh- 
bor when  a  bargain  is  being  struck,  "I'd  loike  to,  but  I  canna  do't." 
This  has  probably  given  rise  to  the  proverbial  saying,  "  Liverpool 
gentlemen  and  Manchester  men."  The  extent  to  which  freedom  of 
manner  and  independence  of  mien  on  the  part  of  the  mill-hands  is 
carried  at  Manchester  is  not  without  its  disadvantages.  A  free  and 
easy  mill-hand  is  apt  in  his  sports  to  bear  a  disagreeably  close  like- 
ness to  the  London  rough.  At  the  Manchester  race-course,  as  has 
been  said,  and  even  at  every  open-air  meeting,  they  muster  in  formi- 
dable force;  and  the  stranger  fresh  from  the  United  States  might  be 
disposed  to  compare  the  streets  of  Cottonopolis  on  the  Saturday 
half-holiday  to  New  Orleans  on  Sunday,  where  the  colored  pedes- 
trians monopolize  the  pavement,  to  the  entire  exclusion  of  the  shrink- 
ing whites.  There  may  be  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  morality 
of  Liverpool  is  exceptionally  high;  but  the  rigid  system  of  police  in- 
spection enforced  at  the  great  English  seaports  renders  the  signs  of 
public  immorality  few  in  number,  and  when  visible  not  of  a  kind  to 
attract  the  fastidious  voluptuary.  Vice,  when  it  is  permitted  to 
flaunt  itself  for  the  allurement  of  mixed  nautical  nationalities  in  the 
public  street,  only  on  the  condition  that  it  shall  submit  to  the  sur- 
veillance of  the  law,  can  scarcely  fail  to  become  a  monster  of  a  mien 
sufficiently  hideous  to  insure  a  very  genuine  amount  of  disgust. 


TOWNS    OF  BUS IX ESS.  .,- 

Perliaps  the  least  agreeable  feature  in  the  social  life  <>f  LiTerpool 
and  Manchester — and  it  is  to  the  formei  town  thai  the  remark  ap- 
plies with  especial  force — is  the  establishment  ofdrinkui  and 
the  extent  to  which  they  are  patronized.  This  is  an  American  im- 
portation, and  it  does  not  exercise  a  wholesome  influence  upon  the 
young  men  of  the  place.  Wine-shades,  bodegas,  and  saloons  abound 
both  above  and  under  ground.  If  they  do  not  result  in  much  ac- 
tual drunkenness,  the  amount  of  tippling  to  which  they  lead,  and 
the  wanton  waste  of  time  which  they  involve,  arc  deplorable.  Twen- 
ty years  ago  the  habit  of  drinking  during  business  hours  was  com- 
paratively unknown  at  Liverpool:  now,  it  is  so  common  as  sea: 
to  attract  attention,  and  certainly  not  to  carry  with  it  an  adeq 
degree  of  stigma. 

The  opportunities  of'the  higher  education  arc  abundant  and  ex- 
cellent at  each  of  the  two  capitals.  Liverpool  has  its  i;,  >\  ;(|  I  imita- 
tion and  Collegiate  School,  Manchester  its  Grammar  School  and 
Owen's  College.  An  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  assiduity  and 
cess  with  which  music,  as  well  as  art  and  letters,  is  cultivated,  from 
the  attendances  at  fortnightly  concerts  during  the  winter  months 
at  the  Liverpool  Philharmonic  Hall,  and  at  the  concerts  under  .Mr. 
Charles  Halle  in  the  Manchester  Free  Trade  Hall.  Debating  so- 
cieties and  literary  clubs  are  also  forthcoming,  while  both  Liverpool 
and  Manchester  boast  the  possession  of  a  newspaper  press  which, 
in  utility,  influence,  and  enterprise,  is  scarcely  second  to  the  press 
of  London.  Generally,  indeed,  and  in  Manchester  in  particular,  at 
the  present  day  the  journalism  of  the  provinces  is  provincial  only  in 
name,  and,  both  in  purely  literary  qualities  and  universality  of  well- 
digested  intelligence,  reaches  the  highest  standards  of  metropolitan 
excellence.  Almost  as  much  may  be  said  of  the  theaters  of  the  two 
cities,  which  are  the  rehearsal  grounds  of  pieces  destined  for  the 
London  stage,  and,  on  the  occasion  of  their  frequent  visits,  are  the 
profitable  empyrean  of  London  stars. 

It  is  the  stately  river  on  which  it  stands  that  gives  Liverpool 
peculiar,  and  in  some  respects  unique,  position  among  C 
towns  of  England.     The  forests  of  masts,  the  spacious  dorks,  the 
daily  dispatch  from  its  harbors  of  grand  ocean  steamers  bound  to 
all  parts  of  the  world,  the  constant  arrival  of  ships  laden  with  b 
ures,  the  stir  and  bustle  of  a  thousand  wharves,  the  incessant  and 
audible  throbbines  in  the  machinerv  of  a  commerce  condu<  ted  with 
every  quarter  of  the  earth  and  every  nation  under  heaven— these 
things  are  to  be  seen  at  Liverpool  as  they  are  to  be  seen  now! 
in  England.     Hull,  Plymouth,  and  Newcastle-on   !  jhty 


96  ENGLAND. 

enrporia  of  trade,  whence  argosies  are  sent  forth  to  all  points  of  the 
compass,  each  with  some  special  trait  of  its  own.  Plymouth  is  iden- 
tified with  military  transports  and  emigrant  ships.  Hull  is  identified 
with  the  spirited  business  carried  on  by  the  descendants  of  Danish 
forefathers — the  stock  which  predominates  in  Yorkshire  generally — 
and  in  the  happy  ventures  in  the  Norwegian  timber  trade.  If  the 
great  capital  on  the  banks  of  the  Tyne  has  a  gloomy  atmosphere,  it 
is  remarkable  as  the  battle-field  on  which  some  of  man's  mightiest 
triumphs  over  the  colossal  obstacles  which  nature  has  opposed  on 
his  path  have  been  won.  For  mile  after  mile  stretches  the  long  line 
of  black  factories.  In  that  dark  row  of  gaunt  sheds,  covering  an 
area  of  upwards  of  two  hundred  acres,  the  implements  of  destruc- 
tion that  annihilate  armies,  the  Armstrong  cannons,  are  forged. 
Such  as  these  continue  to  be  the  ornaments  of  the  banks  on  either 
side  till  Newcastle  has  been  left  behind,  and  a  place  has  been  reached 
where  operations  are  going  on,  which,  when  completed,  may  bring  a 
second  Newcastle  upon  the  scene. 

But  what  we  are  chiefly  concerned  to  see  in  this  coal-blackened, 
antique  Northumbrian  capital,  with  its  immemorial  past,  and  its  infi- 
nite future,  its  old  buildings,  venerable  churches,  hoary  traditions — 
its  inventions,  improvements,  and  devices  of  yesterday,  its  busy  plot- 
tings  and  cunning  contrivances  for  to-morrow — is  the  influence  ex- 
ercised by  science  upon  the  course  of  the  river.  The  Tyne  is  no 
longer  the  stream  which  nature  made  it;  its  bed  is  deepened,  its 
channel  changed.  Headlands  and  ju-omontories  have  been  removed, 
and  thousands  of  tons  of  soil  have  been  uplifted  from  its  depths,  in 
order  that  ships  of  heavy  and  still  heavier  burden  may  float  up  to 
the  very  walls  of  the  town.  The  chronicle  of  the  work  accomplished 
under  the  auspices  of  the  River  Tyne  Commissioners  alone  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  and  significant  of  the  narratives  of  modern  en- 
ergy and  enterprise — the  record  of  a  long  war  patiently  and  suc- 
cessfully waged  against  difficulties  that  the  mightiest  machinery  in 
the  world,  guided  by  clear  heads  and  steady  hands,  has  alone  sur- 
mounted. Fifty-one  millions  of  tons  of  material  were  dredged  out 
of  the  river  in  the  three  years  between  1871  and  1873,  were  taken 
out  to  sea,  and  were  finally  deposited  two  or  three  miles  from  the 
entrance  of  the  river,  in  a  depth  of  water  exceeding  twenty  fathoms 
at  low  tide.  The  width  of  the  river  has  been  increased  in  different 
parts,  from  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  four  hundred  feet.  A  point, 
or  cape,  seventy-five  feet  above  high  water,  which  was  a  most  dan- 
gerous obstruction  to  navigation,  and  which  prevented  those  in 
charge  of  vessels  from  seeing  vessels  approaching  on  the  inner  side, 


TOIVXS    OF  BUSINESS. 

has  been  cut  away.     Existing  docks  have  I  new 

dock,  with  an  enclosed  water-space  of  nin<  !..  four 
by  o,G50  lineal  feet  of  dry  water  quays,  is  being  built     The  com- 
mercial consequences  of  these  colossal  operations  are  Been  in  the 
increased  size  of  the  vessels  frequenting  the  port     In  twenl 
the  average  tonnage  of  vessels  has  risen   from   11!)  tons  I"  more 
than  5U0. 

Of  the  great  towns  of  the  North,  Leeds,  perhaps,  1ms  the  Ian, 
future  in  store  for  it.  For  certain  reasons,  the  counterpart  of  Leeds 
in  the  Midlands  may  be  said  to  exist  in  Birmingham.  Birmingham 
lias  made  immense  strides  in  wealth  and  importance  during  the  last 
fifty  years,  but  in  point  of  opulence  it  is  behind  either  Manchester 
or  Liverpool.  If  there  is  in  the  Warwickshire  capital  a  high  aver- 
age of  substantial  fortunes,  there  are  few  of  the  colossal  incomes 
which  have  ceased  to  be  remarkable  in  Lancashire.  The  social  life; 
of  Birmingham,  which  gives  a  fair  idea  of  the  social  life  of  Li  Is, 
differs  materially  from  that  of  Liverpool  or  Manchester.  The  fash- 
ionable thoroughfares  of  the  capital  on  the  Mersey,  with  their  long 
queues  of  carriages  and  footmen  waiting  in  attendance  about  t la- 
shops  which  ladies  love,  present  much  the  same  appearance  as  the 
fashionable  thoroughfares  of  the  West  End  of  London.  In  Bir- 
mingham, equipages  planned  on  any  thing  like  the  same  scale  as 
those  of  Liverpool  are  comparatively  rare,  and  it  maybe  doubted 
whether,  twenty  years  back,  there  were  more  than  a  score  of  per- 
sons in  Birmingham  who  kept  their  own  carriages.  Again,  even  at 
the  present  day,  men-servants,  with  the  exception  of  coachmen  and 
grooms,  are  rare  in  the  most  opulent  of  Birmingham  households; 
and  where  in  Liverpool  the  front  door  is  opened  by  a  butler  oni  of 
livery,  in  Birmingham  the  visitor  is  announced  by  a  neat  waiting- 
maid  in  her  plain  dress  of  blaek  alpaca  or  merino.  Yet  Birming- 
ham is  not  without  its  comforts,  its  luxuries,  its  great  houses  with 
handsome  and  gracefully  laid-out  gardens  and  artistically  decorated 
interiors.  There  are  many  good  picture  collections  in  Birmingham, 
but  they  have  been  slowly,  lovingly,  and  appreciatively  acquired, 
not  purchased  ready-made  as  in  Liverpool  or  Manchester.  The 
Birmingham  art  connoisseur  sets  to  work  slowly  ami  deliberat 
buys  for  himself,  judges  for  himself.  Thus,  whereas  in  a  represen- 
tative mansion  in  a  great  town  in  Lancashire  paintings,  ornaments, 
and  furniture  are  often  without  a  history,  in  a  corresponding  home 
at  Birmingham  these  are  the  center  of  many  memories  and  associa- 
tions, and  have  been  the  object  of  a  chase,  itself  more  pleasurable 
than  possession. 
7 


98  ENGLAND. 

Of  the  two  there  is  more  which  Birmingham  has  in  common 
with  Manchester  than  with  Liverpool.  The  capital  of  cotton  and 
the  capital  of  hardware  supply  materials  both  for  parallel  and  con- 
trast. As  Manchester  was  the  head-quarters  of  the  National  Edu- 
cational Union,  so  was  Birmingham  the  home  of  the  National 
Education  League.  On  the  other  hand,  as  Manchester — which  also, 
by-the-by,  first  put  forth  the  programme  of  the  Eree  and  Open 
Church  system,  the  abolition  of  pews — is  the  cradle  of  Free  Libra- 
ries, so  is  Birmingham  the  town  in  which  the  experiment  was 
adopted  with  conspicuous  energy  and  very  little  delay.  Again, 
as  Manchester  has  a  reputation  for  picture-galleries  and  institutions, 
so,  too,  has  Birmingham.  These  are  probably  the  two  towns  in  the 
Kingdom  in  which  these  institutions — the  most  beneficent  that  a 
great  city  can  have — flourish  best.  The  industrial  products  of  each 
capital  are  unlike.  Manchester  has  few  manufactures,  but  all  of 
them  on  an  immense  scale;  Birmingham  many,  some  of  them  on 
an  exceedingly  small  scale.  On  the  Irwell  cotton  is  everywhere; 
while  in  the  metropolis  of  the  Midlands  the  industries  and  trades 
of  the  entire  earth  seem  collected.  Every  thing  that  assists,  graces, 
or  destrovs  life  comes  from  its  teeming  warehouses.  There  is  no 
kind  of  implement  used  in  war  which  Birmingham  does  not  make, 
just  as  it  makes  the  most  delicately-pointed  of  needles  and  the 
coarsest,  as  well  as  the  finest  of  locks,  pins,  jewelry,  thimbles, 
watch-chains,  caskets,  awl-blades,  buttons,  screws,  every  variety  of 
gun,  and  every  tool  which  the  manual  worker  knows.  The  man- 
ufacture of  many  of  these  commodities  requires  an  exceedingly 
modest  "  plant,"  and  the  consequence  is  that  Birmingham  abounds 
in  small,  independent  manufacturers,  who  contrive  to  make  a  living 
out  of  the  work  which  they  can  carry  on  in  the  courts  and  alleys 
that  they  inhabit. 

As  at  Leeds  so  at  Birmingham,  ladies  organize  themselves  into 
social  as  well  as  religious  missionaries  for  the  benefit  of  the  work- 
ing classes.  They  endeavor  to  inculcate  the  laws  of  hygiene,  the 
rudiments  of  wholesome  cookery,  the  simple  laws  of  domestic  econ- 
omy upon  the  dwellers  in  the  poorest  districts  of  the  town.  Lec- 
tures, with  the  same  or  analogous  intentions,  are  given  in  the 
schools  that  belong  to  the  School  Board  at  frequent  intervals.  In 
Birmingham,  if  nothing  else  has  been  done,  the  secret  seems  to 
have  been  discovered  for  utilizing  every  available  opportunity,  and 
the  entire  sum  of  existing  human  intelligence. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

TOWNS     OF     PLEASURE. 

University  Towns  and  Cathedral  Towns — The  New  Oxford— Settlers  in  the  ( '.i- 
thedral  Close — County  Towns  and  Garrison  Towns— Exeter,  Plymouth, 
Clifton,  Cheltenham,  Bath — Peculiarity  in  the  Social  Life  of  English  Water- 
ing-places— Essentials  of  the  English  Pleasure  Town— Sports  and  Games: 
their  Influence  upon  English  Society — Rapid  Multiplication  of  English 
Seaside  Watering-places — The  Genesis  of  the  English  Watering-place- 
Common  Features  of  these  Towns — Scarborough — Buxton. 

LEAVING-  now  the  great  manufacturing  centers  of  England,  we 
may  proceed  to  visit  a  few  representative  places,  which,  if 
not  towns  of  pure  pleasure,  are  neither  exclusively  nor  chiefly  de- 
voted to  the  pursuit  of  business  or  trade.  Country  towus,  cathe- 
dral towns,  scholastic  towns,  and  garrison  towns — one  very  often 
uniting  in  itself  the  characteristics  of  all — may  be  described  ;is  hold- 
ing a  position  midway  between  the  abodes  of  pleasure  and  business. 
Of  country  towns  and  the  influences  visible  in  them,  something  has 
been  already  said.*  The  cathedral  towns  of  England  are  mainly 
pervaded,  as  might  have  been  expected,  by  the  ecclesiastical  ele- 
ment, and  the  visitor  to  such  a  city  as  Salisbury  has  no  sooner  set 
foot  within  its  boundaries  than  he  is  conscious  of  something  like 
that  lingering  medisevahsm,  not  yet  completely  expelled  from  Oxford. 
Indeed,  the  ordinary  English  cathedral  city  has  about  it  a  more 
distinctly  old-world  ah  than  the  great  academic  capital  of  the  comt- 
^  try.  The  last  ten  years  have  wrought  a  complete  change  in  Oxford, 
and  have  assimilated  it  in  many  of  its  social  aspects  to  a  London 
suburb.  When,  several  decades  since,  it  was  first  proposed  to  i 
tend  the  Great  Western  Railway  line  from  Didcot  to  beneath  i\<.f 
august  shadows  of  the  spues  and  towers  on  the  Isis,  it  was  objected 
by  the  champions  of  the  old  regime  that  irretrievable  injury  would 
be  done  both  to  Oxford  manners  and  Oxford  morals,  by  bringing 

*  See  Chap.  V.,  Municipal  Government. 


100  ENGLAND. 

the  place  into  immediate  contact  with  outside  existence.  The  towns- 
men, it  was  urged,  would  be  less  passively  obedient  subjects  of  the 
academic  rule.  Undergraduates  would  be  constantly  relieving  their 
studies  with  trips  to  the  Metropolis;  even  the  common-room — that 
apartment  consecrated  to  grave  talk  or  discreet  humor,  and  crusted 
port — would  soon  acquire  a  perilous  likeness  to  a  London  club.  All 
that  was  feared,  and  more  than  was  feared,  have  been  accomplished. 
Town  and  gown  still  lead  tolerably  harmonious  lives,  but  town  has 
an  independent  existence  and  trade  of  its  own,  which  it  had  not  in 
the  pre-railway  days.  College  fellows,  and  even  college  fellows 
who  are  tutors,  live  almost  as  much  in  London  as  in  Oxford;  while 
among  the  guests  at  the  high  table  in  college  halls,  London  guests, 
very  often  of  great  distinction,  may  frequently  be  seen.  The  insti- 
tution of  married  fellowships  has  brought  to  Oxford  an  element  of 
domestic  life  which  is  entirely  new.  The  establishment  at  Oxford 
of  a  military  depot  has  given  Oxford  a  society  which  it  little  dreamed 
of  in  bygone  da}*s.  There  are  dinner-parties  and  dances  in  nearly 
as  great  abundance  during  the  term-time  as  at  Bath  or  Cheltenham. 
An  entire  colony  of  professors,  tutors,  and  lecturers,  with  their  wives 
and  children,  has  sprung  up  on  what  twenty  years  ago  was  vacant 
ground.  "Where  once  the  pale  student  paced  solitary  are  nursery- 
maids and  perambulators,  while  audacious  engineers  have  even 
dared  to  unite  these  outlying  suburbs  with  one  of  the  most  pictur- 
esque thoroughfares  in  Europe — the  Oxford  High  Street — by  a 
tramway  such  as  runs  from  Islington  to  Holloway,  or  from  West- 
minster to  Woolwich. 

In  none  of  the  typical  cathedral  cities  of  England  is  there  any 
thing  like  this  amount  of  busy,  bustling,  various  life.  Even  in  those 
where  there  is  a  considerable  quantity  of  business  done,  such  as 
Chester,  Lincoln,  Durham,  and  Peterborough,  there  is  always  a 
quarter  of  the  town  that  seems  never  to  lose  the  deep  charm  of 
unruffled  quiet  which  an  Oxford  college  garden  seldom  knows  ex- 
cept in  the  heart  of  the  long  vacation.  Round  the  cathedral  itself 
is  a  close — here  an  open  expanse  of  well-kept  turf,  and  here  dotted 
with  a  group  of  forest-trees.  The  shadow  cast  by  the  tall  Gothic 
tower  extends  to  a  row  of  houses,  ranging  in  space  and  design  from 
the  cottage  to  the  mansion,  but  aU  equally  comfortable,  dignified, 
and  inviting  to  repose.  These  occupy,  perhaps,  three  sides  of  the 
entire  enclosure.  Some  of  them  are  inhabited  by  the  ecclesiastical 
officers  of  the  place — canons,  minor  canons,  and  chaplains.  Others, 
again,  have  as  their  inmates  families  who  are  attracted  by  some  tie 
of  kinship  or  sentiment  to  the  spot,  and  have  settled  there  tranquilly 


TOWNS    OF  PLEASURE.    '  lol 

to  spend  the  residue  of  their  days.  Few  echoes  from  the  outer 
world  break  the  calm  of  this  hallowed  precinct  In  the  afternoon 
the  noise  of  carriage-wheels  is  heard  at  intervals,  and  perhap  in 
one  of  the  corners  of  the  close  stands  the  cathedral  school,  whither 
twice  a  day  hoys  with  their  satchels  go,  and  whence  t  \\ i  se  B  dai 
they  issue  with  clatter  and  laughter.  But  the  most  familiar  sound 
to  those  who  have  pitched  then-  tents  in  this  peaceful  Bpot,  and 
which  chiefly  strikes  the  stranger's  ear,  is  the  note  of  the  cathedral 
hell  summoning  worshippers  to  prayer,  and  the  musical  chimes  thai 
ring  out  once  or  twice  a  day.  The  most  noticeable  sight  is  the 
officiating  clergyman  walking  to  the  cathedral,  clad  in  Burplice  and 
college  cap.  To  some  of  the  dwellers  hard  by  these  spectacles  are 
not  only  the  best  known,  but,  next  to  the  cathedral  itself  when 
service  is  being  held,  the  only  spectacles  they  care  for.  There 
many  aspects  of  social  life  in  a  cathedral  close,  and  more  than  one 
novelist  of  the  day  has  given  us  a  series  of  clever  and  effective  pic- 
tures of  the  mutual  jealousies  and  heartburnings  which  are  con- 
cealed in  episcopal  and  diaconal  breasts.  But  Mrs.  Proudie  is  not 
necessarily  the  predominating  spirit  of  the  place,  and  here,  under 
the  cathedral  shadow,  there  could  probably  he  found  ladies  to  w 
the  world  contains  very  little  but  that  cathedral  and  its  sacred  tunc- 

tions.     Life  is  to  them  but  one  religious  exercise,  and  th  i; 

reared  by  the  piety  and  devotion  of  centuries  ago  is  the  only  earthly 
object  which  sorrow  and  affliction  have  left  them  as  the  visible  cen- 
ter of  their  existence  and  aspirations. 

The  cathedral  city  may  have  indeed  an  aspect  of  its  life  very  dif- 
ferent from  this.  It  may  be  a  great  commercial  city  like  Bristol, 
where  the  consecrated  fabric  looks  down  upon  a  busy  river,  crowd- 
ed wharves,  and  thoroughfares  choked  with  traffic;  or  like  Durhai  .. 
where  the  stately  pile  is  blackened  with  the  smoke  from  furnaces 
and  factories;  or  like  Exeter,  which  is  a  county  capital  and  a 
rison  town  as  well.  Exeter,  moreover,  has  not  only  a  considerable 
trade  of  its  own,  but  is  a  picturesque  metropolis  of  western  pleas- 
ure-makers as  well.  It  is,  to  begin  with,  a  great  center  for  all  West 
of  England  tourists,  and  it  has  no  lack  of  regular  residents,  many 
of  them  attracted  from  a  great  distance  by  the  health  and  beauty  of 
the  neighborhood,  many  locally  associated  with  it,  and  pOB8<  ; 
of  friends,  near  whom  they  wish  to  be,  already  settled  in  that  pari 
of  the  world.  Clergymen,  military  and  naval  officers,  retired  civil- 
ians, swell  the  list  of  residents.  There  is  much  to  do,  to  see,  and 
talk  about.  Even  without  the  regiments,  or  sections  of  r<  -  in- 
quartered  here,  there  would  still  be  plenty  of  life  and  gay<  fcy,  tor 


/ 


102  ENGLAND. 

Exeter  is  as  good  a  specimen  of  an  English  county  town  at  once 
prosperous  in  business,  and  with,  a  quiet  air  of  aristocratic  distinc- 
tion about  it,  as  could  be  found  within  the  four  seas.  There  are 
balls,  concerts,  flower-shows  and  promenades,  picnics,  excursions, 
and  pleasure  expeditions  of  every  kind.  Here,  too,  as  elsewhere, 
the  military  element  coalesces  happily  and  closely  with  the  local  or 
purely  county  element.  Gentlemen  who  have  been  quartered  in 
Exeter — and  what  is  true  of  Exeter  is  true  of  many  other  garrison 
towns — when  bearing  Her  Majesty's  commission,  have  been  so  much 
struck  by  the  attractions  of  the  place,  that  when  their  term  of  ser- 
vice has  expired,  they  have  become  permanent  inhabitants.  There 
are  various  and  substantial  educational  advantages  for  their  chil- 
'  dren,  and  there  are  possible  alliances  for  their  marriageable  daugh- 
ters. Of  Plymouth  it  may  be  said  that  all  which  Exeter  has  it 
boasts  also.  Indeed,  Plymouth,  of  the  two,  thoiigh  it  has  not  a  ca- 
thedral, is  a  focus  of  even  more  social  movement  and  variety,  seeing 
that  it  is  not  only,  like  Exeter,  a  county  town,  but  in  addition  a 
great  commercial,  naval,  and  military  station.  The  same  conditions 
are  forcibly  realized  in  the  cases  of  Canterbury  and  York.  Both 
are  garrison  towns  and  cavalry  stations;  the  latter  also  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Northern  District.  There  is  a  close  intimacy  be- 
tween officers  and  the  county  or  city  gentry,  and  these  cathedral 
towns  boast  always  of  a  pleasant  semi-military  and  official  society 
which  keeps  them  generally  full. 

A  majority  of  the  purely  pleasure  towns  of  England  are  of  very 
modern  growth.  Their  development  in  every  instance  presents 
nearly  the  same  features,  and  is  marked  by  much  the  same  inci- 
dents. The  chief  elements  in  then-  composition  are  identical,  and 
the  objects  which  belong  to  one  are  common  to  aU.  It  is  indispen- 
sable that  they  should  possess  certain  physical  qualifications  and 
aptitudes,  that  they  should  have  a  more  or  less  organized  machinery 
of  amusement  and  pleasure;  that  they  should  be  endowed  with  cer- 
tain distinct  hygienic  qualifications,  such  as  mineral  springs  or  a 
particularly  fine  climate ;  that  the}'  should  have  one  or  two  tolerably 
good  schools,  a  popular  preacher,  a  fashionable  doctor,  and  that 
they  should,  if  possible,  be  within  tolerably  easy  distance  of  the 
meets  of  a  good  pack  of  foxhounds.  Bath,  Cheltenham,  and  Leam- 
ington are  all  indebted  for  much  of  their  prosperity  at  the  present 
day  to  the  qualification  last  named.  They  are  capitals  of  pleasure 
and  also  of  health,  but  they  are  in  addition  capitals  of  sport.  Bath, 
indeed,  is  not  quite  so  conveniently  situated  for  the  fox-hunter,  but 
Cheltenham  and  Leamington  have  each  many  of  the  recommenda- 


TOWNS   OF  PLEASURE.  1d;{ 

tions  of  Market  Harborough  or  Meltou,  as  well  as  no  lack  of  attrac- 
tions for  intending  settlers  all  the  year  round.     These  towns  b 

too,  a  reputation  of  some  antiquity.  Bath  was  for  years  a  national 
as  well  as  a  provincial  capital,  and  still  continues  gallantly  to  bold 
its  own  as  one  of  the  great  inland  spas  of  the  kingdom.  Chelten- 
ham and  Clifton  "belong  to  the  same  category,  bul  a1  Cheltenham 
there  is  probably  more  fashion,  and  at  Clifton  there  is  certainly 
more  wealth.  Than  these  three  towns,  Cheltenham,  Clifton,  and 
Bath,  there  is  none  more  beautiful  to  be  found  in  the  United  Kin"- 
dom.  So  far  as  picturesqueness  of  architecture  and  of  situation  is 
concerned,  there  are  few  cities  in  the  world  with  which  Bath  need 
fear  comparison.  Its  houses,  considering  the  period  in  which  t] 
houses  were  built,  are  as  good  as  the  London  houses.  With  the 
exception  of  Portland  Place,  there  is  no  street  in  London  \shi<-h  is 
as  line  as  Pulteney  Street,  and  no  scpiare  or  terrace  to  be  compared 
with  the  Circus  in  Bath.  Nor  are  the  natural  and  artificial  beauties 
of  Clifton  and  Cheltenham  much  less  striking.  The  great  feature  in 
Cheltenham,  in  addition  to  its  delightful  public  gardens,  is  the  r<  ally 
superb  boulevard  leading  from  the  Queen's  Hotel  into  the  High 
Street,  known  as  the  Promenade,  with  its  shops  and  trees  on  either 
side.  In  Clifton  there  are  not  only  the  natural  beauties  of  the 
Downs,  with  the  glimpses  and  breezes  of  the  Severn  Sea,  but  there 
are  also  stately  mansions,  inhabited  mainly  by  Bristol  merchants,  in 
their  own  perfectly  ordered  grounds  on  the  central  highway  lead- 
ing to  the  table-land  beyond. 

It  is  not  "enough  that  the  English  pleasure  town  should  possess  a 
fine  situation,  good  houses,  picturesque  views,  and  popular  clergy- 
men; it  must  have  also  good  schools,  and  the  favorable  opinion  of 
eminent  doctors.  The  medical  profession  can  do  more  towards  mak- 
ing or  marring  the  fortune  of  an  English  watering-place  than  archi- 
tects, land  agents,  or  even  Nature  herself.  To  give  a  place  a  had 
climate  is  to  take  certain  steps  towards  inflicting  a  calamity  of  (inde- 
finable extent  upon  the  landlords;  and  in  any  town  once  popular  in 
which  rents  have  suddenly  depreciated  in  value  it  will  usually  be 
found  that  the  malignant  influences  of  the  medical  profession  have 
been  at  work.  Having  obtained  a  favorable  certificate  from  the 
facuhvy,  the  watering-place  which  wishes  to  be  popular  musl  next 
contrive  to  equirj  itself  with  one  or  two  popular  churches,  and  :it 
least  one  successful  school.  The"  proprietary  college  which  ma; 
may  not  subsequently  succeed  in  obtaining  a  royal  chart,  r  is  a 
eotyped  feature  in  the  modern  watering-place.     Tin  the 

spa,  the  boiling,  hot,  and  tepid  waters  invaluable  for  rheumatic 


104  ENGLAND. 

patients,  the  chalybeate  so  unpleasant  to  the  taste  and  so  "beneficial 
to  the  system,  but  unless  there  is  the  great  school  it  will  be  as  idle 
to  think  of  the  place  prospering  as  it  would  be  to  dream  of  its  exist- 
ence without  the  great  hotel.  Cheltenham,  Malvern,  Leamington, 
Clifton,  Brighton,  and  Bath — though  in  the  last-named  place  there 
has  not  been  the  same  amount  of  concentration  as  in  the  others- 
are  each  of  them  names  suggestive  not  only  of  the  hygienic  value  of 
waters  and  atmosphere,  but  of  schools  which  will  compare  not  unfa- 
vorably with  those  of  older  foundation.  The  significance  of  the  fact 
is  not  affected  by  the  relation  in  which  the  school  may  stand  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  place,  whether,  as  at  Cheltenham,  it  has  been  one 
of  the  efficient  causes  of  the  prosperity;  or  whether,  as  at  Leam- 
ington, Clifton,  and  Brighton,  it  has  been  one  of  the  material  con- 
sequences :  the  great  thing  is  to  have  the  school. 

Nor  is  the  church,  or  rather  the  variety  of  churches,  less  essen- 
tial. Every  English  watering-place  or  town  of  pleasure  is  also  a 
center  of  English  religious  thought,  a  representative  battle-ground 
of  English  theology.  "University  professors  and  doctors,  ecclesiasti- 
cal controversialists  holding  important  offices,  may  preside  over  the 
evolutions  of  the  combatants  from  afar,  and  may  supply  the  princi- 
ples which  are  the  armory  whence  the  weapons  of  local  disputation 
are  drawn.  It  is  not  the  function  of  the  great  leaders  to  mix  in  the 
heart  of  the  vulgar  fray.  If  hard  fighting,  dexterous  tactics,  skillful 
maneuvering  are  to  be  seen,  it  is  to  the  pleasure  towns  of  provincial 
England,  where  there  is  enough  of  leisure,  idleness,  and  spinsterdom 
for  militant  ecclesiasticism,  that  one  must  go.  Roughly  speaking, 
there  are  two  demarkating  lines  which  mainly  divide  the  community 
in  these  places.  Both  of  them  are  of  venerable  antiquity:  one  is  the 
geographical  and  the  other  the  religious.  "When  Solon  first  took  in 
hand  the  legislation  of  ancient  Athens,  he  found  a  state  of  things 
in  which  the  inhabitants  of  hill,  plain,  and  vale  were  separated  by 
the  most  embittered  contentions.  There  is  hardly  a  pleasure  resort 
in  England  in  which  the  outlines  of  an  animosity  based  upon  the 
same  principles  may  not  be  traced.  The  inhabitants  of  the  cres- 
cents and  terraces  may,  for  example,  consider  themselves  superior 
to,  or  may  be  looked  upon  as  natural  enemies  by,  those  who  have 
established  themselves  on  the  plateau  at  their  feet,  or  in  the  still 
lower  lying  ground  beyond.  The  religious  sentiment  is  an  even 
more  prolific  parent  of  cliques  and  coteries.  It  has  greater  power 
than  social  rivalry  or  professional  jealousy. 

Yet  even  thus,  though  supplied  with  its  sanitary  credentials,  its 
big  hotels,  its  educational  institutions,  its  local  rivalries,  its  religious 


TOWNS    OF  PLEASURE.  [05 

enmities,  the  English  town  of  pleasure  lacks  something  to  be  quite 
complete.     It  requires  an  entire  machinery  <>  1  amusemi 

Some  account  will  be  given  in  another  chapter  of  the  pastimes  ami 
the  recreations  of  the  great  masses  of  the  people.     It  is  to  tin   pi 
ure  towns  of  England  that  we  must  go  to  witness,  in  fcheir  most 
highly  finished  shape,  the  amusements  of  which  polite  society  i 
pecially  fond.     Every  form  of  recreation  that  of  late  years  I 
come  popular  in  England  has,  if  not  originated   in,  been  cultii 
with  conspicuous  success  at  these  local  capitals  of  select  enjoyment 
Croquet,  ranking,  lawn-tennis,  each  have  had  their  day,  and  a  long 
day  too,  at  some  one  or  other  of  these  provincial  pleasure  capitals 
of  the  kingdom.     The  immense  popularity  of  each   in  succession 
serves  to  emphasize  a  fact,  which  in  this  busy,  hard-toiling  age  we 
may  imperfectly  realize,  that  there  is  amongst  us  an  immense  num- 
ber of  persons  of  both  sexes  who  are  not  merely  ready  but  anxious 
to  make,  by  their  patronage  and  favor,  the  fortune  of  any  one  who 
will  be  good  enough  to  invent  for  them  a  new  mode  of  agreeably, 
and  more  or  less  athletically,  beguiling  the  passing  hours.     Almost 
all  the  more  important  pleasure  towns  are  in  turn  the  scenes  of 
tournaments  between  proficients  in  some  one  of  these  pastimes. 
Archery  was  a  few  years  ago  the  favorite  sport  of  society  at  Chelten- 
ham; but  we  move  quickly  nowadays,  and  archery  was  soon  voted 
slow.     Later  there  have  been  contests  from  time  to  time  for  <•' 
pionships  and  grand  prizes  at  lawn-tennis,  just  as  a  few 
viously  the  game  was  croquet  at  every  place  at  which  pleasure- 
seekers  congregate. 

The  second  noticeable  fact  suggested  by  the  great  development 
of  these  recreations  is  the  superiority  which  we  are  gradually  e 
lishing  over  many  of  our  insular  prejudices.    In  these;  games  En 
families,  whose  members  are  at  first  mutually  strangers,  mix  freely 
with  each  other,  and  speedily  find  themselves  on  terms  of  more  or 
less  intimate  acquaintance.     Naturally  this  process  has  had  the  < 
of  very  materially  modifying  the  relations  which  formi    '  I 

between  young  English  gentlemen  and  young  English  ladies.  Wh<  Q 
a  number  of  young  men  and  young  women  meet  each  <•, 
after  day,  on  skating-rinks  and  lawn-tennis  ground.-;,  whatever  the 
effort  to  keep  parties  distinct,  some  amount  of  fusion  is  inevitable. 
The  casual  acquaintances  made  at  these  games  arc  perpetual  id  on 
the  promenade,  and  improved  in  the  ball-room;  and  the  daughter 
of  the  English  middle-class  parent,  who,  twenty  years  a  -  liv- 

ing in  a  state  of  almost  vestal  seclusion,  has  now  acquainl         -  on 
every  side.     Her  parents  may  approve  or  disapprove  of  fchifl  state 


106  ENGLAND. 

and  tendency  of  things,  but  it  is  very  seldom  that  they  can  hope 
successfully  to  fight  against  it. 

The  social  consequences  of  the  insular  position,  and  the  pictur- 
esquely indented  coast-line  of  England  are  quite  as  important  in  their 
way  as  the  political.  The  impulse  which  drove  George  IV.  to  Bright- 
helmstone,  as  it  was  then  called,  and  Brighton,  as  it  is  called  to-day, 
is  the  same  which  now  urges  the  entire  English  people  to  the  shores 
of  the  sea  when  summer  has  come.  The  desire  animating  all  sec- 
tions of  the  population  to  scent  the  fresh  odors  of  the  ocean  is  so 
great  that  wherever  nature  presents  the  slightest  opportunities  and 
capacities,  there  a  watering-place  is  at  once  created.  Where  one 
of  these  resorts  is  fairly  established,  a  number  of  others  are  sure  to 
follow  in  an  inconceivably  short  space  of  time.  The  consequence  is 
that  the  whole  littoral  of  the  island  is,  with  occasional  intervals,  a 
fringe  of  seaside  towns  of  pleasure.  On  the  north-west  coast,  Rhyl, 
Llandudno,  Penmaenmawr,  Llanfairfechan,  Bangor,  Beaumaris,  are 
presently  followed  by  Barmouth  and  Aberystwith.  The  south-west- 
ern coast  of  England,  on  the  large  island  bay  made  by  the  Bristol 
Channel,  from  Portishead,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Avon,  to  the  Land's 
End,  presents  the  same  succession  of  pretty  and  popular  resorts. 
On  the  south  coast  one  passes  Plymouth,  Torquay,  Dawlish,  Teign- 
mouth,  Sidmouth,  Seaton,  and  Beer,  and  only  leaves  Devonshire  to 
find  one's  self  in  a  superb  bay,  with  shining  sands,  with  a  magnificent 
breakwater  in  front,  and  a  handsomely-built  town  inland.  This 
town  is  Weymouth.  Passing  thence  eastward,  one  skirts  the  Hamp- 
shire coast  and  the  Isle  of  Wight,  the  bluii's  of  Sussex,  and  the  cliffs 
of  Kent,  witnessing  the  repetition  of  the  same  picturesque  phenome- 
non at  intervals  of  scarcely  a  league.  Between  the  North  Foreland 
and  Flamborough  Head  are  situated  at  least  fifty  similar  pleasure, 
towns,  whose  population  in  the  season  would  probably  be  in  excess 
of  that  of  the  whole  of  the  United  Kingdom  a  hundred  years  ago. 

All  this  provision  for  the  pleasure  and  health  wants  of  the  people 
represents  a  great  deal  of  business  enterprise,  much  profit,  and  some 
loss.  These  new  watering-places  have  often  restored  the  fortunes 
of  impoverished  proprietors  of  neighboring  estates,  or  increased  to 
fabulous  amounts  the  incomes  of  astute  landed  gentry,  who  have 
realized  the  possibilities  of  the  place  and  developed  its  capabilities 
with  much  enterprise  and  judgment.  Not  seldom,  the  advantage  is 
reaped  by  some  go-ahead  speculator,  whether  in  bricks  and  mortar 
or  in  land.  The  way  in  which  the  edifice  of  success  has  been  reared 
is  in  many  cases  the  same.  Having  discovered  some  available  local- 
ity, fronting  the  sea,  the  watering-place  creator  at  once  sets  to  work 


TOWNS    OF  PLEASURE.  107 

to  cover  it  with  houses.     He  has,  at  a  venture,  obtaim  and- 

rent  of  the  soil  upon  tolerably  easy  terms;  be  ha  :h  in 

the  development  of  his  property— 1  >y  adv<  rtisem<  at  [J  is  desirable 
to  procure  from  some  recognized  medical  authority  a  certificate  as 
to  its  singular  salubrity.     If  he  can  also  discover  a  mil  pring 

in  some  unsuspected  recess,  he  will  materially  have  improved  the 
chances  of  the  new  experiment  It  is  much  to  be  wished  that 
the  scene  of  his  operations  should  be  toleral  b>  on  ■  or  two 

thriving  towns,  and  that  it  should  be,  if  possible,  on  t he  main  line 
of  railway  to  and  from  the  metropolitan  terminus.  If  it  has  no  rail- 
way station  at  all — and  in  this  case  he  will  have  been  a  bold  man  to 
have  selected  it — he  will  labor  night  and  day  until  In  has  secured 
the  requisite  railway  extension.  Once  the  new  venture  is  fairly 
started,  all  will  follow  in  due  time,  and  in  pretty  regular  order  of 
succession.  The  streets,  shops,  and  hotels  having  been  built,  and  a 
promenade  having  been  established,  the  next  thin--  is  to  secure  tho 
services  of  a  band  of  fairly  competent  musicians.  Pleasure-gardens 
will  then  begin  to  be  laid  out,  furnished  probably  with  a  skating- 
rink,  and  certainly  with  the  inevitable  lawn-tennis  courts.  J'., 
long  the  admiring  visitors  and  the  inhabitants,  hungry  after  novelty, 
will  perceive  that  a  building,  which  is  to  consist  of  an  aquarium, 
winter-gardens,  and  concert-room,  commences  to  rise.  It  will  be 
finished  with  great  promptitude,  and  covered  with  a  crystal  dome. 
Standing  on  a  lofty  cliff,  the  edifice  commands  a  line  view  of  the  sea; 
and  the  next  thing  will  be  to  establish,  by  subterranean  p 
communication  between  the  shore  below  and  the  terrace  walks 
above.  Meanwhile,  in  the  more  frequented  portions  of  the  town, 
great  changes  and  improvements  have  been  taking  place.  A  town- 
hall  has  been  built,  which  is  alternately  used  for  concerts,  recita- 
tions, and  religious,  literary,  and  scientific  lectures;  a  branch  oi 
Mudie's  library  has  been  established  at  the  post-ohice;  the  rows  of 
pony-chaises  and  donkeys  for  lure  have  increased;  and  the  Lodging- 
house  keepers  are  doing  a  brisk  business.  There  is  a  constant  suc- 
cession of  arriving  and  departing  guests,  and  the  place,  if  it  prospers, 
is  only  quite  deserted  in  the  depth  of  winter.  If,  however,  the 
tlemen  who  have  authority  over  the  spot  are  really  as  a  they 

ought  to  be,  they  will  at  once  establish  a  winter  season.  This  is 
being  done  now  at  most  of  the  chief  watering-places  of  the  United 
Kingdom. 

It  is  natural  that  the  descendants  of  Norsemen  and  Viki 
should   display  the   same   spirit,   though  in  a  different    ahap 
adventurous  enterprise  which  was  the  boast  of  their   for 


108  ENGLAND. 

close  to  the  sea  whose  empire  they  have  inherited  from  their  fore- 
fathers. Every  well-to-do  seaside  haunt  is  a  faithful  testimony  to  the 
bold  activity  that  has  descended  to  this  century  from  prehistoric 
times.  English  watering-places  are  the  most  determinedly  go-ahead 
places  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  No  sort  of  improvement  is  intro- 
duced in  architecture  or  drainage  which  is  not  immediately  taken 
up.  Very  often  there  are  not  merely  new  works  to  be  done,  but  old 
abuses  to  be  rooted  out.  When  a  quiet  fishing  village  is  suddenly 
exaggerated  into  a  large  pleasure  town  there  are  many  sanitary 
defects  in  existence  to  be  remedied,  as  well  as  new  sanitary  precau- 
tions to  be  taken.  It  is  curious  to  notice  how  in  some  of  these  cases 
the  new  town  is  visibly  an  excrescence  upon  the  older  settlements. 
"While  at  Hastings,  St.  Leonard's  and  Brighton  the  development  has 
been  equable,  the  old  town  spreading  out  in  all  directions,  the  East- 
bourne of  to-day  is  at  some  little  distance  from  the  Eastbourne  of 
old  times,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  new  streets  there  may  be  seen 
growing  forest  trees  of  remote  antiquity.  There  are  other  features 
which  the  seaside  towns  of  England  generally  possess  in  common. 
For  most  of  then-  patronage  they  are  dependent  on  the  middle 
classes — the  highest  have  little  to  say  to  the  pleasure  resorts  of 
their  own  country.  When  the  London  season  is  over  they  go 
abroad,  or  on  a  round  of  country-house  visits,  and  this  occupation 
is  enough  till  the  season  for  their  return  to  London  arrives.  Flving 
visits  are  indeed  paid  to  Brighton,  Folkstone,  Hastings,  or  else- 
where, by  the  most  distinguished  representatives  of  English  rank 
and  fashion,  and  places  of  mainly  sanitary  resort,  like  Torquay, 
have  always  a  fan  proportion  of  titled  or  patrician  denizens,  ordered 
thither  by  their  doctors.  It  is  further  to  be  noticed  in  connection 
with  the  pleasure  towns  on  the  English  coast,  that  though  exten- 
sively patronized  by  visitors  from  all  parts  of  England,  they  consist- 
ently preserve  their  local  character.  Scarborough  is  still  mainly 
the  pleasure  town  of  the  North  of  England,  just  as  Brighton  is  the 
great  holiday  resort  of  London ;  as  Folkstone  and  Dover  are  mainly 
peopled  with  the  natives  of  Kent  and  the  neighboring  counties;  or 
as  Barrow-in-Furness  or  Morecambe  Bay  are  with  the  representa- 
tives of  Lancashire  manufacturing  industry.  There  are  also  certain 
aspects  and  seasons  common  to  all  these  watering-places.  However 
exclusive  they  may  pride  themselves  on  being,  they  are  still  scenes 
of  periodical  holidays  and  cheap  excursions,  and  Margate  or  Graves- 
end  cannot  upon  certain  occasions  boast  a  more  genuinely  cockney 
appearance  than  Brighton.  They  have,  too,  their  stated  tunes  for 
particular  classes   of  visitors,  and   the   Scarborough   or   Brighton 


TOWNS    OF   PLEASURE. 

hotels  or  lodging-houses  are  full  of  very  differed  Borts  of  people 
respectively  in  the  early  summer,  the  late  rammer  and  autumn, 

the  winter  months. 

In  their  social  life  there  are  at  once  marked  points  of  similarity 
and  difference.  They  have  all  of  them  their  clubs,  their  picturesque 
drives,  their  promenades  on  the  pier,  and  most  of  them  have  really 
noble  concert-rooms  and  institutions  which,  without  the  card  play 
ing,  are  very  much  like  the  EtaMissements  of  Continental  waterinc- 
places.  In  all  there  is  pretty  much  about  the  same  amount  of  flir- 
tation and  love-making,  of  gallantry  and  scandal  of  pleasure  parties 
by  sea  and  land.  The  same  average  of  gentlemen  inhale  the  is 
ing  virtues  of  the  sea  breezes  by  the  highly  rational  procei 
spending  their  days  in  the  tobacco-lades  atmosphere  of  billiard- 
rooms.  There  are  the  same  eccentricities  and  extravagances  of  cos- 
tume and  possibly  of  conduct.  But  in  small  mat  mis  of  social 
etiquette  each  place  has  more  or  less  a  definite  code  of  its  own,  and 
as  much  may  be  said  of  social  amusements  upon  a  larger  Bcale.  The 
interchange  of  hospitalities,  including  dances  between  the  inmates 
of  different  hotels,  is  hardly  known  except  at  Scarborough  \. 
Buxton  something  of  the  sort  takes  place,  but  not  to  as  equal  ex- 
tent. On  the  other  hand,  Buxton  has  advant  i  n  1  recomm*  n- 
dations  which  are  exclusively  its  own.  Standing  a  thousand  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  sea,  it  not  only  boasts  a  purer  and  clean  r 
atmosphere  than  is  perhaps  to  be  breathed  on  any  other  p 
the  United  Kingdom,  and  a  warm  mineral  spring  of  virtue  BO  power- 
ful that  it  is  unsafe  to  bathe  in  it  without  having  previously  taken 
medical  advice,  but  public  gardens  of  extreme  beauty,  in  which  is 
situated  a  concert-room  where  music  that  is  not  surpassed  in  any 
pleasure  town  of  England  or  of  the  Continent  is  to  be  hear<  I. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

COMMERCIAL    AND    FINANCIAL    ENGLAND. 

Capabilities  of  the  Subject  for  Popular  Treatment— Relations  of  Finance  and 
Commerce — Their  Cosmopolitan  Character — London  the  "World-Center— 
Representatives  of  our  Financial  System— Bank  of  England  and  Lombard 
Street— The  Stock  Exchange— How  Loans  are  granted — London  the  Center 
of  Commerce— Characteristics  of  English  Trade— Signs  of  Change— Possible 
Causes  of  Decline — Hope  for  the  Future. 

THE  mechanism  of  the  money  market  and  the  mysteries  of  the 
organization  of  credit  may  seem  abstractions  to  the  many,  yet 
in  some  way  or  other  they  make  themselves  felt  as  the  most  concrete 
of  realities  by  all.  They  constitute  not  merely  a  system  of  proced- 
ure, but  an  aggregate  of  individual  men.  Above  all  things  their 
growth  has  coincided  with  the  development  of  English  influence  and 
power  in  the  world  at  large.  It  is  credit  which  lies  at  the  founda- 
tion of  English  trade,  and  which  has  chiefly  enabled  us  to  rear  the 
edifice  of  national  prosperity  that  is  the  result  of  centuries.  A  prac- 
tical investigation  of  the  different  component  parts  of  this  colossal 
fabric  will  bring  us  face  to  face  with  the  changing  aspects  of  our 
financial  and  commercial  system,  and  will  reveal  the  fact  that  in  this, 
as  in  other  regions  of  activity  and  enterprise,  England  is  now  in  a 
transitional  state. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  unthread  the  maze  of  causes  that  have  con- 
tributed to  place  England  at  the  center  of  the  finance  and  commerce 
of  the  world.  Enough  for  our  purpose  that  she  is  there;  and  as 
London  is  the  heart  of  the  British  Empire,  it  is  the  heart  of  imiver- 
sal  enterprise,  which  regulates  and  feeds  the  pulses  of  life  that  beat 
throughout  the  whole  vast  framework.  All  roads  may  be  said  to 
lead  to  London,  and  all  impulses  to  trading  activity,  all  outgoings 
of  enterprise  and  energy  that  build  up  markets  in  the  most  dis- 
tant parts  of  the  earth,  make  their  effects  risible  and  palpable  in  the 
metropolis.  An  abundant  harvest  in  the  wide  sweeps  of  the  West- 
ern States  of  America  cheapens  wheat  in  Mark  Lane;  famines  in 


COMMERCIAL    AXD   FINANCIAL    ENGLAND.  Ill 

India  and  China,  which  diminish  the  ability  of  the  natives  of  t! 
countries  to  purchase  our  cotton  goods,  reduce  the  demand  for 
manufactures,  and  make  our  produce  markets  ilaf  and  stagnant; 
bountiful  supplies  of  the  precious  metals  or  scarcity  in  the  output  of 
the  gold  and  silver  mines  of  California  and  Australia  affecl   is  the 
first  instance  the  money  market,  and  afterwards,  by  their  action  on 
prices,  carry  their  influence  into  the  whole  range  of  the  relatio] 
supply  and  demand  in  the  market  values  of  all  sorts  of  commodi 
There  is  a  reflux  of  influence  from  England  and  from   London 
well  as  an  influx  of  mingled  agencies  flowing  from  all  parts  of  the 
globe  towards  the  same  common  center.     The  movement   is  one  of 
action  and  reaction;  but  so  closely  are  the  streams  of  counter  influ- 
ences intermingled  that  we  cannot  lay  a  finger  on  any  one  spot  and 
boldly  affirm  that  here  is  the  primum  mobile;  at  this  point  is  the  main- 
spring of  the  universal  system.     Efflux  and  reflux,  action  and  reac- 
tion, ebb  and  flow,  are  at  work  throughout  the  entire  Bcheme;  and 
so  closely,  pervasively,  and  intimately  do  they  co-operate  that   no 
quickness  and  delicacy  of  discrimination  can  detect  the  beginnings 
of  them  separate  workings.     We  can  only  track  them  in  their  mul- 
titudinous results.     We  find  out,  sometimes,  through  the  sn 
snapping  of  a  weak  link  in  the  complex  organization,  that  there  has 
long  been  a  flaw  in  one  part  or  the  other  of  the  huge  machine. 
It  may  be  the  failure  of  a  bank,  or  the  collapse  of  some  great  firm, 
bringing  in  its  train  ruin  to  thousands,  and  multiplying   failures 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.     We  are  then  able 
to  trace  the  causes  which  have  been  slowly  fretting  against  the  \ 
spot  till  at  last  it  gives  way  with  a  crash,  but  it  is  always  difficult,  if 
not  impossible,  to  isolate  any  one  set  of  agencies  and  decide  with 
dogmatic  assurance  that  they  and  nothing  else  have  brought  about 
the  interruption — that  it  has  been  the  panic  in  the  United  Stati  I  a 
few  years  previously,  or  the  famine  in  the  East,  or  the  de- 
wars  in  the  West,  or  the  gradual  reaction  from  over-inflation  under 
a  false  currency  system,  or  the  bad  harvests  of  successive  years,  or 
changes  in  the  habits  of  populations  that  supplied  markets  for  our 
goods,  or  any  other  of  the  hundred  and  one  causes  which  may  have 
all  contributed  in  them  degree  to  induce  the  final  catastrophe. 
streams  of  commerce  may  have  been  flowing  languidly  to  the  i 
mon  center,  and  in  its  turn  that  center,  with  diminished  pow(  r 
absorption  and  reduced  capacity  to  scatter  the  beneficent  products 
throughout  other  lands,  may  have  failed  to  discharge  the  functions 
that  were  easy  in  times  of  vigorous  health.     But  we  shall  rarely  l>e 
able  to  set  apart  the  intermingling  currents  and  unravel  the  inter- 


112  ENGLAND. 

twining  threads  so  as  to  fix  upon  each  its  precise  share  of  the  re- 
sponsibility. It  is  with  commerce  and  with  the  finance  which  is 
partly  the  creature  and  yet  in  great  measure  the  creator  of  com- 
merce, as  with  the  phenomena  of  life — we  can  follow  the  processes 
by  and  through  which  it  works  and  produces  its  effects,  but  when 
we  reach  the  border  line  between  life  and  death,  we  are  bathed,  and 
the  original  obscurity  remains  as  impenetrable  as  ever. 

Of  late  years  in  particular  the  most  prominent  feature  of  trade 
and  commerce,  as  of  finance,  has  been  then  increasingly  interna- 

I  tional  and  cosmopolitan  character.  The  laws  under  which  they 
act  and  the  tendencies  they  are  ever  striving  to  realize  are  peculiar 
to  no  country  or  people,  for  they  are  illustrated  by  all.  To  this 
fact  is  due  the  universality  of  their  effects  and  influences.  This 
universality  is  in  great  measure  due  to  their  diversity;  so  that  what 
is  lacking  in  the  forces  and  elements  supplied  by  one  nation  is  sup- 
plemented from  another.  There  must  be  a  common  meeting  point 
for  all  these  varying  and  counterworking  factors,  and  this  is  found 
in  the  British  metropolis.  Not  all  London,  however,  but  only  as  to 
geographical  extent  and  locality  one  comparatively  small  section  of 
it.  If  England  be  the  heart  of  international  trade  and  cosrnoj)oli- 
tan  finance,  and  London  be  the  heart  of  England,  the  City  is  the 

/  heart  of  London.  The  City,  too,  has  its  peculiar  nerve-center. 
Within  the  superficial  area  on  which  stand  the  Bank  of  England, 
the  Stock  Exchange,  the  various  edifices  of  which  Lombard  Street 
consists,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  several  spots  where  dealers 
congregate,  and  which  constitute  the  metropolitan  markets,  may 
be  said  to  be  ranged  the  congeries  of  local  habitations  and  names 
that  give  regulations  to  the  finance  and  commerce  of  the  whole 
world.  Eor  the  sake  of  distinctness,  although,  as  in  regard  to 
other  phenomena  already  spoken  of,  the  diverse  series  of  influences 
run  into,  overlap,  and  reciprocally  act  and  react  upon  each  other, 
it  may  be  useful  to  take  the  broad  distinction,  which  we  shall  work 
out  into  clearer  detail,  of  Financial  London  and  Commercial  Lon- 
don. Ah  the  facts,  laws,  influences,  and  tendencies  of  trading, 
enterprise,  mercantile  or  monetary  speculation,  credit  with  its  wide- 
spread and  mtdtifarious  ramifications,  and  exports  and  imports  of 
luxuries  and  necessaries,  together  with  their  means  of  distribution 
in  virtue  of  which  as  made  exchangeable  they  become  economical 
phenomena,  will  fall  into  their  places  under  one  or  the  other  of 
these  heads. 

Without  attempting  to  establish  which  of  the  two  series  has  pre- 
cedence in  the  order  of  time — for  it  would  be  difficult  in  regard  to 


COMMERCIAL    AXD    FINANCIAL  \\;\ 

this  cas  to  the  other  facts  already  adverted  to,  to  draw  any  broad  I 
of  demarcation — we  select,  for  convenience'  sake,  Financial  Lond< 
which  -will  mean,  it  is  hardly  necessary   to  say,  Financial  England. 

To  give  a  vivid  sense  of  reality  to  the  subject,  Lei  as  then  take  the 
Bank  of  England,  with  its  surrounding  feeders  and  suckers  in  the 
hanking  circle  of  Lombard  Street,  as  the  one  leading  reprea  Na- 
tive, and  the  Stock  Exchange,  the  great  mart  for  dealings  in  all 
kinds  of  stocks  and  shares,  as  the  other.     The  Stock  Exchange  is 
pre-eminently  cosmopolitan.     Among  its  members  are  brokers  and 
"jobbers"  of  many  nationalities.     Specially  conspicuous  among  tin  m 
are  the  descendants  of  the  greal   Semitic  race.     The  Bant  of  ling- 
land,  on  the  contrary,  is,  or  is  supposed  to  be,  national,  and  as 
agent  of  the  Government  and  the  keeper  of  the  Government  bal- 
ances it  ought  to  be  so.     Yet  little  consideration  is  required  to  ahow 
that  the  Bank  of  England  is  very  much  more — though  in  some  re- 
spects it  is  also  very  much  less — than  its  name  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate.    Outside  and  beyond  the  specially  national   functions   which 
the  Bank  is  bound  to  discharge  in  being  the  banker  of  the  (  tovern- 
ment,  the  issuer  of  notes  that,  under  certain  conditions,  are  ], 
tender  and  therefore  national  currency,  in  taking  charge  of  Govern- 
ment securities  and  paying  the  dividends  thereon  to  the  hold. 
and  in  discharging  the  other  various  offices  of  a  bank  for  the  pub- 
lic,  there  are  other  multifarious  functions  which  it  is  compelled  by 
its  position  to  fulfill.     Bills  from  all  parts  of  the  world  are  drawn 
payable  in  London,  as  in  other  capitals,  because  it  is  convenient   to 
have  recognized  places  at  which  the  international  trading  balai 
and  the  balances  between  the  merchants  and  traders  of  differ 
countries  may  be  settled;  while,  by  mere  force  of  geographical  cir- 
cumstances, London  has,  in  a  special  degree,  drifted  into  the  p 
tion  of  international  Clearing-House  of  the  world,  and  the  hanking 
functions  connected  with  it  are  largely,  though  not  exclusively,  dis- 
charged by  the  Bank  of  England,  which  is  known  as  the  banki 
bank  at  home.     This  is  not  all.     In  the  final  resort,  when  balani 
remain  to  be  discharged  as  between  one  nation  and  another,  after 
all  the  complicated  mechanism  of  bills  set  off  against  each  other  has 
accomplished  its  utmost,  they  must  be  paid  in  gold.     There  is  no 
other  means  of  settling  the  final  outcome  of  the  mass  of  transactions 
in  international  commerce   except  through  the   precious  metals 
gold  and  silver;  and  while  silver  is  mainly  employed  in  the  E 
gold  is  chiefly  used  in  the  West.     London  consequently,  as  the  con- 
venient center  that  may  be  drawn  upon  from  all  parts  of  the  woi 
must  possess  a  stock  of  gold  sufficient  to  meet  the  demand.  I 
8 


114  ENGLAND. 

may  be  made  on  it.  The  Bank  of  England,  as  the  banker  of  the 
nation,  is  the  custodian  of  this  treasure;  and  being  thus  constituted 
a  bullion  storehouse,  to  it  flow  all  supplies  of  the  precious  metal 
that  reach  our  shores.  Circumstances  have  thus  caused  it  to  become 
a  dealer  in  bullion  as  well  as  a  banker.  The  Bank  of  England,  in 
fact,  discharges  wider  than  national  banking  functions.  Along  with 
the  joint  stock  and  private  banks  by  which  it  is  surrounded,  and 
with  which  its  relations  are  close  and  intimate — for  as  the  central 
institution  it  keeps  the  reserves  of  the  other  bankers  as  well  as  its 
own— it  represents  the  banking  of  the  metropolis,  and  therefore,  in 
the  final  issue,  of  England.  Owing  to  England's  world-wide  com- 
mercial relations,  this  same  banking  system,  and  the  subsidiary 
agencies  by  which  it  is  buttressed,  acts  as  the  general  international 
Clearing  House;  and  bearing  in  mind  the  duties  that  further  de- 
volve on  it  from  the  fact  that  London  is  the  great  bullion  center,  we 
can  form  some  faint  idea  of  the  multiplicity  and  complexity  of  its 
operations,  and  the  vastness  of  the  weight  which  presses  on  the  cen- 
tral pivot  around  which  the  entire  commercial  and  financial  system 
revolves. 

It  will  make  the  points  we  have  indicated  more  distinct,  as  well 
as  help  the  course  of  our  argument  afterwards,  if  we  explain  here 
the  way  in  which  the  financial  position  which  London  has  thus  come 
to  occupy  was  gained.  Its  mission  as  the  international  Clearing 
House  and  the  bullion  center  is  not,  it  may  be  observed,  necessarily 
permanent.  It  is  only  within  a  comparatively  short  time  that  Lon- 
don has  assumed  these  cosmopolitan  functions.  Going  back  little 
more  than  a  century  we  find  that  Amsterdam  was  the  center  of  in- 
ternational commerce,  and  the  place  where  international  balances 
were  settled.  Still  later,  at  a  period  when  London  had  assumed 
more  prominence  than  formerly,  the  honors  were  divided;  Paris 
being  one  of  the  two  centers,  though  London  was  steadily  gaining 
on  the  French  capital.  By  degrees,  owing  to  the  greater  security 
of  capital  in  our  insular  abodes  during  eras  of  wars  and  revolutions 
on  the  Continent,  the  supremacy  passed  wholly  over  to  the  British 
metropolis.  It  depends  upon  the  co-operation  of  very  various  lines 
of  influences  and  streams  of  tendency  whether  or  not  the  British 
metropolis  is  to  maintain  its  autocratic  position.  It  is  possible  to 
suppose  that  England — and  therefore  London — may  remain  the 
head-quarters  of  the  world's  capital,  and  the  settling-place  of  the 
cash  differences  of  nations,  after  writing  off  international  debits  and 
credits,  merely  because  it  is  convenient  that  there  should  be  some 
such  recognized  spot.     But  there  would  be  very  little  security  in 


COMMERCIAL    AND    FINANCIAL    ENGLAND,  in 

the  pre-eminence  of  this  international  harbor  of  refuge  it'  its  w 
rested  on  no  more  secure  basis.     If  convenii  d  se  alom 
eide,  why  might  not  New  York,  or  N.w  Orleans,  or  Cincinnati,  or 
some  other  American  city,  do  as  well  as  London;  for  are  no!  the 
United  States  at  least  as  likely  to  be  free  from  the  disturbaj 
foreign  war?     The  only  assurance  of  the  permanenl  maintenanoi 
its  position  by  London  must  lie  in  the  coincidence  of  t1  era! 

convenience  with  the  continuance  of  our  own  mercantile  activity,  by 
f  retaining  the  lead  we  have  in  general  enterprise.  Thus  the  finan- 
cial and  the  commercial  dovetail  into  each  other  again  here.  Our 
supply  of  skilled  labor  and  our  supply  of  capital  are  the  two  main 
considerations  that  have  given  us  our  advantage;  and  should  tl, 
continue  to  be  happily  directed  all  may  be  well 

Turn  now  to  the  second  representative  of  England's  cosmopoli- 
tan finance — the  Stock  Exchange.  It  is  difficult  for  city  men  to 
conceive  a  London  without  a  Stock  Exchange;  yet  it  is  only  half  a 
century  since  it  became  an  institution  of  much  magnitude,  and  \ 
much  less  than  that  since  it  assumed  anything  like  its  present  *  1  i  - 
mensions.  Primarily — as  already  indicated — it  is  the  great  mart 
the  sale  of  various  classes  of  documentary  securities.  Its  organiza- 
tion is  such,  that  there  is  a  ready  market  within  its  walls  for  all  sorts 
of  stocks  and  shares  that  may  be  offered  for  sale;  and  any  intending 
buyer  of  any  particular  kind  of  security  maybe  reasonably  confident 
that  by  employing  one  of  its  recognized  members,  or  brokers,  ho 
will  get  what  he  wants.  This  is  the  main  service  which  is  rendered 
by  the  Stock  Exchange;  and  it  is  facilitated  through  the  pn 
in  the  building  of  a  class  of  middle-men  called  "jobbers,"  who  are 
always  buying  and  selling,  and  make  their  profits  out  of  minute 
"turns"  in  the  prices  of  the  market,  but  rarely  hold  what  they  pur- 
chase beyond  the  day.  It  is  the  "jobber's"  function  to  "make  a 
price";  that  is  to  say,  a  broker  who  is  instructed  t<>  buy  or  sell  a 
certain  number  of  railway  shares  by  a  client  will  not  go  to  another 
broker  acting  for  other  clients.  It  would  take  a  long  time  t"  find 
out  any  one  who  might  have,  and  might  wish  to  dispose  of,  the  par- 
ticular kind  of  stock  which  he  or  his  client  wanted.  Instead  of 
spending  his  time  in  trying  to  find  that  out,  a  quest  which  might 
prove  futile,  the  broker  goes  to  a  "jobber"  and  asks  him  to  "m 
a  price,"  to  buy  or  sell,  as  the  case  may  be.  It  becomes  the  "job- 
ber's" business  to  conrplete  the  transaction  in  such  a  was  a-. 
securing  a  minute  fraction  in  his  own  favor,  to  make  a  profit  out  of 
it;  and  the  presence  of  "jobbers"  has  thus  the  effed  of  making 
read}r  dealings  nearly  always  possible. 


116  ENGLAND. 

Most  people  who  read  the  newspapers  must  have  formed  in  their 
own  minds  some  vague  conception  of  what  the  Stock  Exchange  is 
like;  but  probably  few  who  have  done  so  would  not  feel  then  fancy- 
picture  sadly  disturbed  if  they  were  to  make  their  way  any  day  to 
one  of  the  several  entrances  to  the  large  building — in  the  immedi- 
ate neighborhood  of  the  Bank  of  England — in  which  the  business 
we  have  described  is  carried  on.  The  public  are  not  admitted 
within  the  turbulent  precincts  of  "  the  House,"  and  all  the  anxious 
inquirer  can  do  is  to  scan  it  from  one  of  its  several  exits  and  en- 
trances, at  Capel  Court,  or  Hercules  Passage,  or  Throgmorton 
Street.  Stationed  at  the  open  door,  he  sees  busy  men — the  brokers 
and  "jobbers  "■ — thronging  in  and  out,  occasionally  stopping  to  speak 
to  a  client  by  whom  he  has  been  "  called  "  out — a  process  performed 
by  attendants,  who  shout  with  stentorian  voices  through  a  tube  the 
name  of  the  individual  wanted,  until  the  word  is  taken  up  inside, 
and  made  by  a  second  stentorian  voice  to  reverberate  through  the 
room.  The  building  is  parceled  out  so  that  separate  quarters  are 
assigned  to  the  dealers  in  different  classes  of  securities;  thus  we 
have  the  Foreign,  the  American,  the  Home  Railway  Markets,  and 
so  on.  The  din  and  clatter  inside  are  deafening  and  confusing; 
though  in  this  respect  the  Paris  Bourse  bears  away  the  palm  from 
the  London  Stock  Exchange. 

In  this  building,  out  of  and  into  which  flows  almost  uninterrupt- 
edly the  stream  of  brokers  and  jobbers,  dealings  for  the  sale  and 
purchase  of  all  kinds  of  securities  are  carried  on  ceaselessly  from 
morning  till  afternoon.  But,  in  truth,  Ave  have  gained  a  very  par- 
tial conception  of  what  the  Stock  Exchange  is  and  does  when  we 
have  only  learned  to  understand  so  much  as  this.  It,  too,  like  the 
Bank  of  England,  has  other  varied,  vast,  and  complicated  work. 
In  addition  to  men  selling  shares  of  banks,  railways,  or  gas  com- 
panies, for  which  they  wish  to  get  the  value  in  money,  and  others 
performing  the  counter-process  of  buying  such  securities  for  invest- 
ment purposes,  so  as  to  obtain  a  good  return  in  the  shape  of  yearly 
interest  for  their  money,  there  is  a  mighty  array  of  what  are  called 
speculative  transactions.  Speculative  accounts  are  opened  by  re- 
spectable brokers  on  behalf  of  clients,  in  whose  ability  to  meet  pos- 
sible losses  they  have  confidence,  or  from  whom,  if  there  is  any 
shade  of  doubt,  a  sum  of  money  is  exacted,  under  the  name  of 
"  cover,"  to  assure  the  broker  that  he  shall  not  lose,  however  the 
speculative  business  may  turn  out.  Baying  or  selling  speculatively 
— being,  that  is  to  say,  in  Stock  Exchange  parlance,  a  "  bull "  or  a 
"bear" — does  not  mean  that  the  client  for  whom  the  broker  buys 


COMMERCIAL    AXD    FINANCIAL    EN 


wishes  to  purchase  the  stock  he  has  directed  to  be  b  m 
become  its  owner,  or  that  lie  has  any  supply  of  thi 

to  sell,  so  as  to  be  able  to  hand  it  over  to  th<    p         ,  who  i 

bid  the  highest  price  for  it.     The  "bull"  buys  in  the   h 

wl  en  the  time  for  arranging  the  nexl   fortnightly  accouni 

is  called  the  settlement— comes  round  the  price  of  the  si 

have  risen,  in  which  case  he  will  poc  hia  profit  the 

ence  "  between  the  price  at  which  he  bought  and  the  pri 

account-day,  minus  the  broker's  commission.     And  in  Li]         inner 

the  "bear"  sells,  hoping  that  by  ac<  v  the  pric< 

he  offered  may  have  gone  down,  when  the  "diffi  "  b<  fcween 

two  prices — again  less  broker's  commission  —will  go  into  bis  po 

As,  however,  instead  of  rising  the  price  may  fall,  or 

it  may  rise,  the  "  bull "  or  the  "bear"  must  pay  the  "diff  rem 

when  they  are  against  him.     So  that  in  reality  this  kind  "I  dealing 

by  means  of  speculative  accounts  comes  to   be  a  mere    - 

wagers  that  stocks  will  fall  or  rise,  and  is  justly  held  to  be  gambling 

by  the  law,  so  that  the  "differences"  cannol  he  recov< 

process.     But  although  this  introduces   an  additional  .t   of 

uncertainty  into  the  business,  since  the  law  cannot  he  Bet  in  mi 

to  enforce  the  completion  of  gambling  bargains,  speculate 

1  on  in  such  a  variety  of  ways,  and  to  such  an  enormous 
through  the  machinery  of  the  Stock  Exchange  that  no  description 
of  our  financial  organization  would  be  complete  without  Borne  n  fer- 
ence  to  speculative  accounts. 

In  addition  to  being  a  market  for  investment  and 
the  Stock  Exchange  is  also  the  intermediary  through  which  pul 
loans,  home  and  foreign,  are  raised.     This  function  has  develop    1 
naturally  out  of  the  other  functions  spoken  of.    The  Stock  Exchange 
is  the  place  where  investors,  having  money  which  they  wish  t 
ploy  to  good  purpose,  meet  and  bargain,  through  ag<  i.is.  with 
who  have  securities  to  sell  that  yield  returns  in  interest   to  tin  ir 
holders.     Consequently,  it  is  part  of  the  duty  of  those  who  have 
the  regulation  and  control  of  the  Stock  to  arra 

conditions  on  which  stocks,  shares,  and  other  securities  are  alii 
to  be  dealt  in,  so  as  to  be  brought  within  reach  of  in 

culators.  As  it  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  any  loan  on  tin 
of  a  foreign  state  or  a  home  company  would  be  taken  up.  thai 
say,  subscribed  for,  unless  it  could  ]  •  in  on  the  Stocl    I 

change,  the  authorities  of  that  institution,  who  are  represented  by 
the  committee  for  general  purposes,  have  large  p  »f  pron 

or  frustrating  the  very  largest  financial  operations  on  the  ] 


118  ENGLAND. 

foreign  governments  and  home  corporations.  A  foreign  country  in 
need  of  a  loan  always  tries  to  domiciliate  it  in  London,  so  as  to  have 
a  wider  area  from  which  to  attract  subscribers  than  can  be  found 
anywhere  else  in  the  world,  and  so  as  to  obtain  a  quotation  from  the 
Stock  Exchange  that  will  make  the  scrip  of  such  a  loan  capable  of 
being  dealt  in  readily. 

It  may  simplify  matters  yet  further  if  we  sketch  in  outline  the 
steps  of  the  process  of  issuing  a  foreign  loan.  The  enumeration  of 
these  may  suggest  the  necessity  for  reforms;  but  it  is  no  part  of  our 
business  to  consider  that  matter  here. 

The  first  step  taken  when  a  foreign  state — let  us  say  Egypt,  for 
example's  sake — has  applied  to  some  well-known  financial  house 
whose  name  is  a  power  of  itself,  is  the  drawing  up  of  a  secret 
"  contract "  between  the  government  wanting  the  money  and  the 
London  bankers,  who  will  on  the  faith  of  the  anticipated  success 
of  the  loan  give  advances  on  terms  profitable  to  themselves.  A 
prosjoectus  is  then  made  ready  by  some  competent  firm  of  London 
solicitors,  setting  forth  in  as  glowing  terms  as  possible  the  advan- 
tages which  will  accrue  to  investors  if  they  lend  then-  money  in 
return  for  the  bonds  of  the  said  foreign  government.  Copies  of 
this  prospectus  are  forwarded  several  days  in  advance  to  an  enter- 
prising advertising  firm  having  wide  connections,  which  undertakes 
to  do  the  advertising  for  a  consideration.  But  these  agents  in  Lon- 
don do  a  great  deal  more  than  the  advertising.  Most  of  them  keep 
their  "  literary  man,"  whose  business  it  is  to  write  a  series  of  para- 
graphs which  set  forth  the  good  points  of  the  forthcoming  loan,  and 
which  paragraphs  are  dispatched  to  the  city  editor,  together  with 
the  advertisements,  usually  late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  pre- 
ceding the  date  of  issue  of  the  loan.  The  prospectus  duly  appears 
next  morning  in  the  newspapers,  and  simultaneously  in  the  city  arti- 
cle there  appear  those  commendatory  notices,  either  as  furnished,  or 
rewritten  by  the  city  editor  or  his  clerk  upon  then'  model.  So  far, 
then,  the  means  for  creating  the  conditions  of  a  favorable  reception 
for  the  loan  have  been  provided.  The  manipulation  of  the  outside 
world  has  been  provided  for,  and  now  the  manipulations  commence 
inside  the  Stock  Exchange.  Two  or  more  "jobbers"  who  deal  in 
the  particular  market  the  loan  is  connected  with — foreign,  American, 
or  home — are  secretly  employed  by  the  "contractors"  to  bid  for  the 
bonds  1  or  1J  premium;  that  is,  £1  or  £1  10s.  above  the  price  at 
which  the  loan  is  nominally  issued — the  price,  that  is,  named  in  the 
prospectus.  The  fact  of  this  being  done  superinduces  the  belief 
that  these  new  bonds  must  be  a  valuable  security,  seeing  that  ha- 


COMMERCIAL    AXD   FINAM  Z I  /.    /'  \ « 7LA  YD.  \  1  1 1 

bitual  dealers  ou  the  Stock  Exchange  have  already  offered  mi 
than  the  government  which  is  responsible  for  Hum  Ltseli  asked  I 
Outsiders  are  induced  to  apply  to  the  contractors  for  a  numb  t  ol 
the  bonds,  in  the  expectation  of  securing  the  premium  bj  afterwardfl 

selling  at  the  higher  price  already  quoted  in  the  mark*  t.     Thus,  bj 
the  help  and  with  the  co-operation  of  stock-brokers  and  "jobb<  i 
the  loan  is  gradually  worked  off  upon  the  public;  and  English  in-  . 
vestors  and  capitalists  give  their  hard-won  earnings  to  construe! 
some  impracticable  railway  in  the  wilds  of  South  Ajnerica,  to  feed   ' 
the  cravings  of  semi-barbarous  Oriental  monarchs  for  Wesfa  rn  lux- 
uries, or  to  do  something  still  more  wasteful     The  vueA  sum-,  that 
have  been  lost  in  foreign  loans  of  late  years  shew  thai  this  is  QO 
exaggerated  picture,  though  of  course  many  of  their  number  are 
perfectly  legitimate,   and  the  proceeds  may  be  applied   to   useful 
purposes. 

The  art  of  loan-mongering  has  advanced  to  great  perfection,  and 
has  almost  been  raised  to  the  dignity  of  a  separate  profession.  This 
will  be  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  as  a  rule  not  more  than  two-thirds 
of  the  amounts  which  the  various  persons  apply  for,  who  are  willing 
to  lend  their  money  to  the  state  or  corporation  in  want  of  help,  are 
what  is  called  "allotted";  that  is  to  say,  if  they  ask  for  £1,000  of 
bonds  they  will  only  get  perhaps  £700  or  £800;  and  the  impression 
is  thereby  produced  that  the  new  bonds  are  in  great  demand.  As 
the  bo)iaJzde  subscribers  do  not  get  all  they  asked  for  on  application, 
they  are  tempted  to  employ  a  broker  to  buy  more  for  them  on  the 
Stock  Exchange.  There  they  have  to  pay  the  premium;  and  thus 
the  demand  is  kept  going,  and  the  price  is  kept  up  until  the  eon- 
tractors  have  profitably  disposed  of  all  the  bonds  they  had  under- 
taken to  issue  to  the  public.  One  of  the  witnesses  examined  before 
the  Foreign  Loan's  Commission  stated  as  his  opinion  that  it  would 
be  impossible  to  float  a  loan  in  London  without  the  use  of  the  Stock 
Exchange  machinery,  because  the  real  English  investors,  mosi  of 
whom  live  in  the  country,  always  look  to  the  London  market  quota- 
tions, and  are  guided  by  them  in  deciding  what  stocks  and  shan  a 
to  buy. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  Stock  Exchange  is  an  essential  part 
of  the  machinery  of  credit.  It  is  indispensable  as  an  intermediary 
for  facilitating  purchases  and  sales  of  existing  shares  and  stocks; 
and  its  services  are  equally  necessary  in  "floating"  the  shares  ol 
new  enterprises,  or  the  stocks  of  new  loans  Bought  for  bj  fori 
governments.  The  financial  machinery  would  be  incomplete  with- 
out it;  indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  borrowings  and  Landings 


120  ENGLAND. 

to  any  very  large  extent  could  be  carried  on  without  the  medium  of 
the  Stock  Exchange.  There  are,  in  addition  to  the  London  institu- 
tion, provincial  exchanges  throughout  the  country;  but  these  all 
look  to  London  for  guidance  ;  and  metropolitan  prices  regulate 
prices  at  the  minor  establishments. 

Having  explained  the  nature  of  the  two  leading  representative 
institutions  by  which  the  accumulations  of  capital  are  stored  up  or 
lent  out,  and  by  which  therefore  the  double  process  is  performed 
of  collecting  the  surplus  earnings  that  result  from  the  profitable 
employment  of  industry,  in  order  to  divert  them  in  reproductive 
streams  into  other  channels  of  enterprise,  there  to  fructify  and  fer- 
tilize, we  shall  have  formed  some  general  conception  of  the  province 
and  functions  of  finance  in  Financial  London  and  Financial  England. 
It  is  through  the  discharge  of  these  important  duties  that  London  is 
the  financial  center  of  the  world,  for  without  its  banking  system,  of 
which  the  Bank  of  England  is  the  head,  we  should  not  have  the 
head-quarters  of  international  business  here,  and  we  could  not 
therefore  be  the  financial  center.  And  in  like  manner  without 
the  Stock  Exchange  there  woidd  be  difncultv  in  making  the  stores 
available  for  widely  diffused  use. 

Yet  financing,  on  however  large  a  scale,  with  its  twin  agents  of 
accumulation  and  distribution,  is  rather  the  efflorescence  than  the 
root  of  true  national  prosperity.  We  can  conceive  a  state  which  is 
rich  and,  in  a  sense,  prosperous  through  finance  alone.  We  can 
conceive  our  own  country  as  an  extensively  commercial  state,  having 
ceased  to  cultivate  agriculture,  and  being  wholly  dependent  upon 
other  communities  for  the  supply  of  the  wants  of  her  population. 
It  is  conceivable  that  England  might  in  such  a  state  of  things  be 
rich  and  prosperous;  but  she  would  not  be  the  England  we  have 
known  in  the  past.  We  have  attained  to  our  pre-eminence  among 
the  nations  because  we  have  cultivated  self-dependence,  and  have 
secured  a  population  of  skilled  laborers  who  have  been  able  to  turn 
out  goods  of  first-class  quality.  Agriculture  and  manufactures  have 
gone  hand  in  hand;  and  by  developing  the  spirit  of  enteiprise  we 
have  secured  the  position  we  hold  in  the  markets  of  the  world. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  into  elaborate  arguments  as  to  the 
claims  and  merits  of  varying  schools  of  economists;  but  we  may 
assume  that  the  pre-eminence  England  has  attained  has  been  chiefly 
due  to  the  fact  that  it  knew  how  to  take  advantage  of  all  openings, 
and  that  while  our  own  soil  was  diligently  cultivated,  our  manufact- 
urers succeeded  in  making  other  countries  tributary  by  buying  from 
and  selling  to  them  on  advantageous  conditions.    If  we  were  to  cease 


COMMERCIAL    AND   FINANCIAL    EN  \  J] 

i  to  be  a  great  manufacturing  community,  if  mwei 
on  the  markets  of  the  world,  am!  were  110  longer  able  to  ■  imp 
our  own  population  with  any  considerable  amounl  of  the  lu 
and  necessaries  of  life,  we  might  remain  powerful  and  \  ealtl 
a  state,  but  our  power  and  wealth  would    resi  on  a  m  w   foun 
lion.     We  should  have  become  transformed  into  the  mer< 
for  other  countries  that  had  taken  our  place  and  outstripped  iu 
manufactures  and  agriculture.     We  should  be  great  as  bai    • 
the  international  Stock  Exchange  and  hill  and  bullion  cent< 
should  enjoy  the  profits  derived  from  these  sources;  but  w<   sh< 
no  longer  be  the  proud  leaders  of  the  world's  industry.     We  ah 
be  reduced  to  live  in  a  great  degree  upon  our  past   accumulate 
of  capital;  and  it  may  be  questioned  if  when  our  own  industry  I 
ceased  to  be  our  mainstay,  we  should  lnu--  continue  to  solace  our- 
selves with  pleasant  prospects  of  national  stability. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  as  an  industrial  and  commercial  Btate  thai 
England  has  prospered  so  wonderfully  in  the   past,  and  that   her 
wealth  has  accumulated  from  year  to  year.     We  have  1"  en  a  ] 
ducing  community,  adding  to  the  sum  of  the  general  wealth  by 
enormous  masses  of  manufactured  commodities  for  the   mpplj   of 
the  wants  of  our  own  population  in  the  first  instance,  and  then 
be  sent  aU  over  the  globe  for  sale  or  exchange.     Thron 
prise  of  her  sons  and  the  industry  of  her  laboring  clfl 
gained,  for  examine,  the  command  of  the  cotton  trade.     Thi    pro- 
ducts of  the  looms  and  spindles  of  Lancashire  have  provided  fabi 
for  the  inhabitants  of  India  and  the  East,  as  well  as  for  i' 
countries  nearer  home.     By  adopting  ami  adapting  all   im 
ments  in  machinery,  and  by  turning  out  of  our  mills  and 
good  articles  of  workmanship,  we  were  able  to  take  the 
nations.     It  was  the  same  with  regard  to  iron  and  i  tee!  and  the  in- 
numerable objects  which  were  made  of  iron  and   steel.     Sheffii 

I  cutlery  became  famous  all  the  world  over  just  as  Lanca  ihir< 
goods  did.    With  our  supplies  of  coal  we  could  manufacl  are  cheaply, 
and  as  Ave  had  the  start  of  other  communities  because  we  I 
enterprising  and  industrial  population,  we  began  to  accumulat 
ital  in  advance  of  other  nations,  and  the  more  capita!   i 
command  the  greater  became  our  facilities  in  earn  in- 

dustries, which  came  to  be  our  staple  exports  to  for. 
Circumstances  were  favorable  to  Great  Britain  in  man\  ways.     '! 
foundations  of  her  prosperity  were  laid  by  the  enterpi 
of  her  sons  and  by  the  industry  which  these  Bona  ■  ble  to  dir 

and  employ.     Within  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years  we  ha  I 


122  ENGLAND. 

enormous  harvests  of  profit  by  the  adoption  of  the  system  of  free 
imports,  through  which  we  came  to  command  the  resources  and 
industrial  products  of  other  nations.  The  simultaneous  vast  exten- 
sion of  the  means  of  intercommunication  by  railways  and  telegraphs 
for  a  time  contributed  to  the  further  development  of  our  trading 
activity.  The  products  of  our  manufactories  were  passed  into  all 
countries;  and  all  countries  to  some  degree  responded  by  sending 
us  the  products  they  could  best  turn  out.  In  this  way  came  the 
mighty  commercial  growth  of  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  which 
culminated  in  the  excited  prosperity  of  the  years  1872,  1873,  and 
1874  Under  the  system  of  free  imports  England  opened  her  ports 
to  the  goods  and  manufactures  of  all  the  world,  but  unfortunately 
she  has  not  been  able,  on  the  other  hand,  to  secure  the  abolition 
of  the  protectionist  duties  imposed  by  foreign  nations.  As  it  hap- 
pened, first  the  xVmercian  Union  and  then  the  continent  of  Europe 
were  engrossed  with  war  or  the  expectation  of  war,  which  had  the 
practical  effect  of  a  stringent  protective  system  in  our  favor;  for 
other  nations  had  not  the  needful  time  and  energy  to  give  to 
corseting  with  us  in  industrial  efforts  while  they  were  fighting 
the  battle  of  self-existence,  or  struggling  to  extend  then-  national 
power  under  the  promptings  of  ambition  and  aggression.  Little 
wonder  if  with  the  start  we  had  we  were  able  to  make  such  good 
use  of  our  opportunities  as  immensely  to  extend  our  commercial 
preponderance. 

The  prosperity  of  England  which  has  enabled  her  to  accumulate 
vast  wealth  thus  rested  on  an  industrial  and  commercial  basis.  Her 
great  financial  system  has  grown  out  of  her  commercial  resources. 
We  have  spoken  of  our  banking  system  as  one  of  the  two  most  im- 
portant factors  in  the  financial  mechanism  which  is  so  dehcately  or- 
ganized in  Lombard  Street.  But  though  this  is  true  in  regard  to 
banking  as  the  outcome  and  the  instrument  of  the  complex  organi- 
zation of  credit,  without  which  mercantile  transactions  on  a  large 
scale  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impracticable,  banking  comes  into  the 
field  at  a  much  earlier  stage  than  might  be  inferred  if  this  were  its 
sole  function.  No  sooner,  indeed,  does  commerce  by  bringing  in 
jn'ofits  attain  any  considerable  proportions  than  bankers  are  needed 
to  -transmit  money  from  place  to  place,  and  to  keep  in  safety  the  bal- 
ances that  are  accumulated  as  the  profits  of  trading,  as  well  as  to  sup- 
ply— it  may  be— the  circulating  medium  which  may  be  used  to  sup- 
plement gold  and  silver  coin.  In  this  aspect  of  banking,  in  an  earlier 
phase  of  commercial  society,  it  is  the  interconnecting  link  between 
commerce  and  finance;  although  in  its  complete  organization  it  is 


COMMERCIAL    AND   FINANCIAL    ENGLAND.  \i\ 

the  culmination  of  the  matured  financial  system.  The  close  connec- 
tion between  commerce  and  banking,  and  the  .1.  r,  e  in  which  they 
are  interdependent,  is  illustrated  by  the  effects  produced  U  a  bank 
failure  upon  the  general  community.  Whenabani  stops  which  has 
supplied  loans  to  mercantile  firms  and  traders,  the  withdrawal  of  the 
usual  facilities  that  had  been  afforded  by  it  to  its  custom, 
the  stability  and  resources  of  the  merchants  who  had  been  depend- 
ent on  it;  and  if  serious  enough  may  induce  a  general  Loss  of  confi- 
dence and  consequent  diminution  of  credit  throughoul  the  business 
community.  When  this  is  carried  to  a  certain  point  we  have  what 
is  called  a  panic. 

From  what  has  been  said  regarding  England's  commercial  and 
financial  systems,  and  the  intimate  connection  there  is  between  them, 
it  wiU  now  be  intelligible  to  me  reader  how  both  are  liable  to  fluc- 
tuations and  great  changes.  Such  changes  have  been  alreadj  wit- 
nessed in  this  countiy,  and  there  are  many  signs  which  appear  to 
indicate  that  we  have  yet  greater  before  us.  "We  have  spoken  of  the 
excited  prosperity  of  the  years  1872-74,  and  have  shown  that  it  was 
due  to  a  variety  of  causes  wholly  apart  from  the  impetus  given  to 
commerce  by  free  trade.  Since  that  period — which  is  familiarly 
known  as  the  time  of  "leaps  and  bounds"  in  our  material  pro 
— we  have  had  a  still  more  protracted  era  of  depression.  The  oat 
of  that  have  also  been  numerous  and  various.  It  is  not  in  England 
alone  that  there  have  been  industrial  depression,  commercial  decline, 
and  the  gradual  curtailment  of  our  purchasing  powers  as  a  com- 
munity. The  commercial  panics  in  Vienna  and  Berlin,  and  those  in 
the  autumn  of  1873  in  the  United  States  of  America,  were  the  pre- 
monitions of  what  was  coming,  and  about  to  involve  nearly  all  na- 
tions in  severe  suffering.  It  is  not  surprising  in  view  of  this  lapse 
of  commercial  and  trading  energy,  leading  to  a  final  decay  of  enter- 
prise, and  the  loss  on  the  part  of  the  general  population  of  the  re- 
sources out  of  which  they  were  able  to  purchase  the  luxuries  and 
necessaries  of  life,  that  the  epiestion  has  been  raised  on  the  Con- 
tinent whether  that  from  which  we  are  suffering  is  a  "definitive 
crisis,"  or  only  one  of  the  series  of  periodical  alternations  which 
illustrate  the  law  of  action  and  reaction,  or  ebb  and  llow,  so  that  we 
are  now  passing  through  the  time  of  rebound  from  a  period  of  over- 
inflation.  It  would  take  us  too  long  to  discuss  this  problem.  For 
ourselves,  we  see  no  reason  for  regarding  the  mercantile  d< 
of  the  present  time  as  different  in  nature  from  that  of  the  usual 
periods  of  reaction  that  follow  inordinate  confidence  and  ovea 
velopment  as  surely  as  the  night  the  day.    The  grounds  relied  upon 


124  ENGLAND. 

to  prove  the  opposite  are  unsubstantial.  "Why  should  it  be  supposed 
that  all  the  world  has  at  this  precise  year  of  grace  come  to  the  "  end 
of  its  tether  "  in  regard  to  the  development  of  its  industrial  resources  ? 
It  is  true  that  railways  and  telegraphs  have  been  everywhere  multi- 
plied, and  that  English  money  has  been  used  in  taking  to  remote 
parts  the  machinery  of  civilization — in  the  construction  of  roads  and 
canals,  the  introduction  of  gas  into  towns,  and  the  formation  of 
mighty  systems  of  water-suppiy  for  largo  populations.  It  is  also 
true  that  it  has  been  in  consequence  of  the  number  of  these  indus- 
trial works  all  over  the  globe  that  wealth  has  multiplied  with  the 
amazing  rapidity  witnessed  during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century. 
"We  have  sent  money  to  foreign  countries  for  employment  in  these 
and  other  ways,  and  have  received  in  return  immense  imports  of 
goods  and  products  of  every  clime,  which  have  stimulated  trade.  It 
may  be  a  question  whether  England  has  not  done  this  too  exten- 
sively for  her  means,  whether  her  enterprise  has  not  been  stimu- 
lated to  precipitate  and  excessive  developments.  There  are  rea- 
soners  among  us  who  assert  that  this  has  been  so,  and  they  support 
their  averment  by  pointing  to  the  growth  in  the  excess  in  the  value 
of  the  goods  and  industrial  products  that  are  imported  from  other 
countries  into  England  over  the  value  of  the  goods,  and  native  pro- 
ducts that  have  been  exported  from  England  to  all  the  rest  of  the 
world.  The  figures  which  are  published  every  month  by  the  Board 
of  Trade  furnish  an  index  bv  which  we  may  know  how  things 
commercial  are  going  with  us.  In  former  years  we  used  to  export 
more  than  we  imported;  and  therefore  we  received  from  other 
countries,  in  return  for  the  manufactures  and  goods  we  sent  to 
them,  more  than  we  gave  away.  There  was  thus  a  margin  of  profit 
on  the  whole  mass  of  our  foreign  trade ;  and  for  a  long  time  econo- 
mists looked  upon  the  amount  of  the  profit  thus  received  as  the 
surest  test  of  national  prosperity.  As,  however,  our  population  and 
our  wealth  grew  our  wants  increased,  and  within  recent  years  we 
have  bought  so  much  from  other  countries  in  necessaries  and  luxu- 
ries that  the  exports  of  all  our  manufacturing  products  have  not 
sufficed  to  pay  for  them,  and  the  "  balance  of  trade,"  as  it  is  called, 
has  accordingly  been  thrown  against  us.  Instead  of  being  consid- 
ered a  bad  sign,  as  would  have  been  the  case  long  ago,  a  new  school 
of  economists  has  arisen,  who  tell  us  it  is  the  best  sign  of  our  wealth; 
that  we  import  thus,  enormously  beyond  what  we  export,  because 
we  have  such  a  large  accumulated  capital;  and  this  capital,  they  say, 
has  been  increasing  yearly  bv  gigantic  strides  to  the  extent  of  hun- 
dreds  of  millions.     It  is,  no  doubt,  quite  true  that  a  country  can- 


COMMERCIAL    AND    FINANCIAL    ENGLAND.  125 

not,  any  more  than  an  individual,  go  on  buying  goods  beyond  what 
it  can  pay  for.  It  may  do  so  for  a  time  on  credit,  but  ruin  musl  be 
the  result  if  too  long  persisted  in.  The  excess  of  English  imports  of 
articles  of  merchandise  over  exports  is  at  once  a  proof  of  English 
wealth  and  of  the  indebtedness-of  foreign  countries  to  Great.  Britain. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  evident  that  that  wealth  is  not  an  inex- 
haustible quantity,  and  if  the  excess  goes  on  continuously  increas- 
ing there  must  be  danger  of  exhaustion,  unless  wo  are  able  to  mul- 
tiply our  capital  even  quicker  than  we  are  spending  it. 

We  do  not  wish  to  encumber  our  pages  with  figures,  but  to  illus- 
trate our  precise  mercantile  position  we  may  give  here  the  amount 
of  the  excess  of  our  imports  over  our  exports,  and  show  how  it  has 
been  growing  recently.  In  order  to  get  at  the  true  figures  we  must 
make  allowance  for  various  disturbing  elements  that  require  us  to 
alter  very  considerably  the  gross  amounts  stated  in  the  Board  of 
Trade  returns.  For  example,  there  are  the  differences  between 
what  is  called  the  "  declared  value  "  or  the  estimated  worth  of  our 
exports  and  imports,  and  their  actual  selling  prices  after  freights 
and  transport  charges  and  all  other  expenses,  with  fair  margins  for 
profits,  are  allowed  for.  We  must  also  remember  that  the  mere 
enumeration  of  quantities  and  values  will  give  only  an  approximate 
idea  as  to  the  national  progress  or  decline.  Excess  in  exports  over 
imports  may  be  satisfactory  when  the  result  is  a  remittance  home  in 
cash  or  an  addition  to  our  investments  in  property  or  loans  held 
abroad.  On  the  other  hand,  excess  of  imports  is  satisfactory  when 
it  is  the  result  of  the  receipt  of  goods  of  greater  value  than  those 
sent  out,  or  when  it  is  paid  for  by  income  accruing  to  the  importing 
country  from  investments  sent  abroad.  Bearing  these  facts  and 
views  in  mind  the  following  may  be  relied  upon  as  an  approxima- 
tion to  the  amounts  of  the  adverse  balances  of  trade  which  England 
has  had  to  provide  for : — 


1871 £15,000,090 

1870  34,000,000 

1869 30,000,000 

18G8 37,000,000 

1867 27,000,000 

1866 36,000,000 


1873 £19,000,000 

1874 29,000,000 

1875 54,000,000 

1876 83,000,000 

1877 100,000,000 

1878 say  100,000,000 


The  nominal  balances  against  us  have  been  a  great  deal  more ;  and 
these  estimates  do  not  certainly  err  in  making  the  figures  unduly 
small. 

It  will  be  seen  that  of  late  years  the  adverse  balances  have  made 
great  strides,  so  we  need  not  be  surprised  that  grave  anxiety  ha  i 


I 


126  ENGLAND. 

been  excited.  It  is  certain  that  a  part  of  the  debt  we  have  thus  in- 
curred has  been  met  by  an  export  from  this  country  of  bonds  of 
indebtedness  from  other  countries  held  here.  This  may  not  prove 
that  our  wealth  as  a  nation  is  declining;  it  may  mean  that  the  money 
winch  the  bonds  represent  is  being  employed  in  a  different  way,  al- 
though still  in  investments,  but  that  is  only  an  hypothesis,  and  if  true 
at  all  is  only  to  a  partial  extent.  The  fair  conclusion  is  that  we  have 
had  to  part  with  these  bonds  because  we  had  to  pay  away  so  much 
more  money  than  we  could  provide  for  out  of  profits  and  out  of  the 
returns  from  our  investments.  We  have,  in  fact,  been  living  to  some 
extent  upon  our  capital.  If  we  look  closely  at  the  figures  we  have 
given  we  shall  find  some  important  lessons  taught  by  them  which 
are  by  no  means  wholly  reassuring.  It  will  be  seen  that  there  was 
a  balance  against  us  of  from  thirty  to  forty  millions— roughly  speak- 
ing— each  year  during  the  period  starting  from  the  year  of  the  bank- 
ing panic  in  18GG  on  to  1870.  In  1871  that  balance  was  reduced  as 
low  as  £15,000,000,  and  in  1872  it  was  wiped  out  altogether.  In 
1873  it  was  only  £19,000,000,  and  in  1874  it  was  £29,000,000;  but  it 
has  multiplied  with  such  rapidity  since,  that  three  years  afterwards 
it  was  nearly  four  times  the  latter  amount.  Now  the  years  in  which 
the  adverse  trading  balance  was  uniformly  low  were  those  in  which 
this  country  enjoyed  the  greatest  trading  prosperity  it  has  ever 
known.  A  change  set  in  in  1871,  and  from  that  time  till  now  we 
have  been  going  from  bad  to  worse  until  trade  profits  have  almost 
disappeared,  and  Ave  are  passing  through  a  testing  time  of  great 
severity.  Yet  the  time  in  which  we  are  most  seriously  depressed  is 
the  time  in  which  we  have  had  to  pay  enormously  more  to  other 
countries  than  we  ever  did  before.  Even  the  vast  accumulations  of 
English  wealth  cannot  stand  for  an  indefinite  time  the  tremendous 
drafts  represented  by  adverse  trade  balances  of  hundreds  of  millions 
sterling.  If  it  could  be  proved  that  we  are  still  meeting  these  drafts 
out  of  the  interest  on  our  capital,  it  is  yet  plain  that  we  must  have 
ceased  to  be  accumulating  fresh  capital.  The  export  of  foreign 
bonds  already  alluded  to,  however,  is  in  all  likelihood  a  direct  drain 
upon  capital. 

Matters  have  thus  been  brought  to  this  crisis  :  that  with  our 
growing  tastes  for  luxuries  as  a  people,  and  the  enormous  additions 
to  our  national  expenditure  in  consequence,  we  have  come  to  occu- 
py a  position  in  which  we  are  no  longer  progressing,  but  rather 
appear  to  be  standing  still,  if  we  are  not  even  falling  back.  And 
.  at  this  precise  time  it  is  that  we  find  other  nations  able  to  compete 
with  us  to  an  extent  such  as  we  have  never  before  experienced. 


COMMERCIAL   AND    FINANCIAL    ENGLAND.  127 

It  does  not  need  resort,  therefore,  to  any  theories  of  "definitive 
crises,"  such  as  are  bruited  abroad  on  the  Continent,  to  show  that 
things  are  in  a  critical  way  with  us.  The  progress  of  the  human 
race  would  not  be  arrested  even  if  English  progress  were.  There 
are  other  great  industrial  works  to  be  done  in  addition  to  the  rail- 
ways, telegraphs,  canals,  and  important  public,  enterprises  thai  h 
been  constructed  during  the  past  quarter  of  a  century.  A  new 
world  is  opening  in  the  east,  and  America  in  the  west  lias  an  almost 
boundless  future  of  expansion  and  development.  Continued  stag- 
nation in  trade  would  bring  universal  paralysis,  and  that  is  death; 
but  partial  stagnation  often  clears  the  way  for  a  new  departure. 
Besides  the  new  countries  that  are  being  opened  up  as  a  field  for 
the  employment  of  capital,  there  are  also  signs  of  the  multiplication 
of  new  and  vast  scientific  forces,  such  as  the  electric  light,  for  in- 
stance, which  will  probably  lead  to  an  immense  development  of  enter- 
prise. The  depression  which  we  have  seen  to  exist  is  the  natural 
rebound  from  overactivity,  and  it  has  continued  till  all  spring  ami 
elasticity  seem  to  have  gone  out  of  our  trade.  It  has  been  deepened 
and  intensified  by  numerous  other  agencies  and  causes — the  losses 
to  individuals  through  foreign  defaults,  the  reaction  upon  England 
of  the  severe  depression  that  has  been  felt  in  the  United  States  ever 
since  the  panic  in  1873,  recent  political  troubles,  the  depreciation 
of  silver,  and  the  consequent  disorganization  of  our  Eastern  trade, 
the  famines  in  India,  the  lock-up  of  capital  to  excess  in  machinery 
and  other*  means  of  production.  It  needs  no  theory  of  physical  cau- 
sation, such  as  the  spot  in  the  sun,  on  which  Professor  Jevons  has 
been  bestowing  anxious  thought,  to  account  for  the  long  drawn 
out  crisis  though  which  we  have  been  passing. 

The  question  which  is  of  primary  importance,  however,  is  whether 
over  and  above  these  more  or  less  transitory  causes  there  are  signs 
of  a  permanent  loss  of  trade.  It  is  certain  there  will  be  no  perma- 
nent stoppage  of  the  demand  for  the  goods  which  England  has 
hitherto  supplied.  So  far  as  our  own  population  are  concerned, 
they  have  of  late  years  attained  to  a  higher  level  of  average  comfort 
than  formerly;  but  who  will  say  that  even  yet  they  are  clothed  as 
they  ought  to  be?  Were  the  times  brisk  and  wages  high,  their  de- 
mands for  cotton  goods  must  increase;  and  it  would  be  well  for 
themselves  as  well  as  for  the  trade  of  the  country  if  they  would 
spend  more  of  their  earnings  in  this  way  and  less  at  the  public- 
house.  Temperance  enthusiasts  exaggerate  when  they  attribute  the 
depression  of  trade  to  the  drinking  habits  of  our  population;  lmt  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  if  half  the  money  that  is  wasted  on  drink 


/ 


128  ENGLAND. 

were  spent  upon  the  comforts  of  life,  a  lasting  impetus  would  be 
given  to  trade.  As  it  is,  there  is  little  reason  to  fear  the  extinction 
of  the  demand,  and  our  own  home  markets  will  always  furnish  our 
manufacturers  with  the  means  of  disposing  of  a  portion  of  their 
goods.  But  it  is  much  harder  to  say  whether  England  is  likely  to 
continue  to  supply  the  demands  not  merely  of  her  own  population, 
but  of  the  inhabitants  of  foreign  countries,  in  the  same  large  pro- 
portions as  formerly.  Although  the  alarm  professed  in  some  quar- 
ters is  unwarranted,  seeing  that  nearly  the  whole  decrease  in  exports 
shown  by  the  Board  of  Trade  returns  is  accounted  for  by  the  fall 
in  values,  the  quantities  remaining  nearly  the  same,  yet  in  many 
branches  of  manufactures  in  which  we  could  fairly  claim  the  su- 
premacy not  long  ago,  we  have  now  to  fight  against  competi- 
tors who  run  us  hard  in  the  race.  The  United  States,  steadied 
and  made  careful  by  recent  suffering,  are  increasing  their  exports 
largely,  and  have  lately  turned  an  adverse  trade  balance  into  a  fa- 
vorable one.  We  must  expect,  as  capital  increases  in  America,  that 
more  of  it  will  go  into  machinery,  and  that  thus  we  shall  have  power- 
fid  rivals  in  our  American  friends.  If  cotton  mills  were  established 
in  the  Southern  States,  near  where  the  cotton  is  grown,  the  Ameri- 
cans would  be  able  to  manufacture  more  cheaply  than  we  can.  Al- 
ready, indeed,  the  vast  Mississippi  valley,  which  used  to  be  wholly 
agricultural,  is  studded  over  with  manufactories.  It  is  the  same  in 
India,  where  cotton-spinning  has  assumed  large  proportions;  and 
England  is  being  beaten  by  her  own  dependencies.  It  is  in  great 
degree  the  fault  of  our  own  people  that  this  is  the  case.  Our  man- 
ufacturers and  merchants,  or  rather  perhaps  our  manufacturers 
tempted  by  merchants  and  brokers,  many  of  whom  are  aliens  and 
interlopers,  under  the  stimulus  of  competition,  and  greedy  of  profits, 
have  carried  adulteration  to  a  terrible  extreme.  Their  cotton  goods 
have  been  adulterated  with  China  clay  in  many  cases  to  the  extent 
of  two  hundred  per  cent.  It  is  for  this  reason  more  than  any  thing 
else  that  we  are  losing  command  over  the  Indian  and  Chinese  mar- 
kets. The  natives  of  Eastern  climes  are  shrewd  enough  to  know  and 
value  good  materials,  and  having  found  the  cloth  they  bought  from 
English  makers  turn  out  badly,  they  resort  to  other  traders.  It  is 
doubtful  if  we  shall  ever  recover  the  supremacy  we  have  thus  lost 
in  the  Eastern  markets,  and  we  have  ourselves  for  the  most  part  to 
blame.  It  is  the  righteous  punishment  of  those  who  have  revelled 
in  "  cheap  and  nasty  "  goods. 

But  though  England  may  not  resume  the  scepter  of  an  autocrat 
in  trade,  it  will  be  wholly  her  own  fault  if  she  ceases  to  be  one  of 


COMMERCIAL    AND   FINANCIAL    ENGLAND.  129 

the  large  producers  of  the  world.     What  threatens  to  wred   the 
reins  from  her  hands  is  not  so  much  foreign  competition,  or  the  waul 
of  reciprocity,  as  the  practice  of  adulteration,  and  the  high  pii< 
English  labor  as  compared  with  foreign.     Our  work-people  must 

either  submit  to  further  reductions  in  their  wages  or  to  loi 
hours  of  work,  or  to  a  further  expenditure  of  effort  which  will 
insure  a  better  quality  of  work  during  the  present  hours.  Unless 
adulteration  is  stopped,  however,  nothing  will  save  English  for 
trade  from  ruin;  for  people  will  cease  to  buy  from  us  when  they 
find  they  can  no  longer  depend  upon  the  quality.  We  must  is  anj 
case  expect  to  have  to  face  greater  competition  in  the  future  than 
we  have  had  in  the  past,  now  that  we  have  so  many  rivals  in  the 
field;  but  if  England  be  only  true  to  herself,  and  her  trailers  prac- 
tice the  virtues  which  once  distinguished  them,  no  one  is  likely  to 
take  her  pre-eminence  from  her.  She  may  not  sit  as  queen  among 
the  nations,  but  she  may  always  at  least  be  prima  inter  pares,  'rimes 
of  depression  will  pass  away;  trade  will  resume  its  activity,  and 
prosperous  times  will  be  again  seen.  These  days  will  not  conic, 
however — or,  if  they  do  they  will  not  abide — unless  our  trailers 
abandon  the  ways  of  trickery  and  deceit,  and  learn  the  virtues 
which  distinguished  their  forefathers  in  the  proud  days  in  which 
English  mercantile  honor  was  unstained,  and  when  the  name  of 
English  goods  was  a  synonym  for  excellence. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

COMMERCIAL     ADMINISTRATION. 

General  Principles  of  Business  Administration — Typical  Instances  selected : 
(1)  Common  Trade,  (2)  Iron  Trade,  (3)  A  Banking  House— Gradation  of 
Responsibility  in  the  Management  of  Cotton  Mills — Different  Responsible 
Officials  and  their  Several  Provinces — The  Managing  Partner — Yorkshire 
Iron  Works — Organization  traced  from  Pit's  Mouth  to  Sale  of  the  Article 
— Business  of  a  great  Banking  House  in  London  described — Functions  of 
the  Separate  Partners — Capital  employed,  Political  Influences,  and  General 
Principles  to  be  observed  in  the  Management  of  each  of  these  Businesses. 

IT  may  be  said  of  every  great  business,  that  it  is  a  microcosm  of 
our  civil  polity  and  the  embodiment  of  principles  which  are 
recognized  in  the  conduct  of  the  highest  departments  of  State.  It 
has  been  shown  in  a  previous  chapter  that  the  possessions  of  the 
territorial  nobility  require  in  their  management  not  a  few  of  those 
qualities  displayed  in  imperial  administration.  The  conduct  of  the 
great  commercial  concerns  of  England  involves  the  same  centraliza- 
tion of  authority,  delegated  by  regular  gradations  throughout  the 
whole  system.  The  cotton  and  iron  trades  of  Lancashire  and  York- 
shire, and  the  chief  banking  houses  of  the  city  of  London  afford  the 
best  instances  of  the  organization  of  that  private  enterprise  which  is 
the  mainspring  of  English  commerce. 

We  will  select  our  first  illustration  from  the  large  cotton  indus- 
tries of  the  north.  The  unbaled  cotton,  already  mixed  so  as  to 
secure  uniformity  in  quality,  passes  through  a  series  of  machines, 
leaving  the  first  in  the  form  of  a  fleece  and  the  second  in  rope-like 
coils,  until  it  is  thoroughly  cleaned  and  carded,  or  combed  into  rudi- 
mentary threads  of  an  even  thickness.  In  this  form  it  is  twisted  by 
the  roving  machines  and  throstles  and  wound  on  bobbins  (or  reels) 
in  its  finished  state  as  yarn;  and  as  such,  is  moved  to  the  weaving 
shed,  where  it  is  woven  into  the  finished  material.  The  whole  pro- 
cess is  done  by  machinery;  for  in  the  shed  the  threads  are  arranged 
in  warps,  dressed  with  size,  the  loom  is  worked,  the  shuttle  thrown. 


\ 


COMMERCIAL    ADMINIS  TRA  TI(  W.  1 : ;  1 

the  warp  unwound,  and  the  finished  doth  wound  on  the  roller  ready 

for  the  warehouse,  by  steam-power.  Except  in  the  removal  of  the 
material  from  one  machine  to  the  other,  the  intervention  of  mas  is 
restricted  to  supervision,  to  the  control  of  the  speed  of  the  machine, 
to  an  unceasing  watchfulness  to  arrest  ii,  when  any  hitch  threatens 
damage,  and  to  the  removal  of  the  obstruction. 

With  this  supervision  the  responsibility  commences.  An  indi- 
vidual minder  or  weaver  controls  a  certain  number  of  hands,  and  is 
accountable  to  the  overlooker  for  the  work  turned  out  by  so  many 
mules  in  the  one  case,  or  by  so  many  looms  in  the  other.  Of  these 
overlookers  there  is  one  to  each  room,  who,  again,  is  responsible  to 
the  foreman  of  the  spinning  or  of  the  weaving  department  for.the 
material  delivered  from  his  room,  the  foreman  himself  being  account- 
able to  the  factory  manager.  The  woven  material,  or  cloth,  when 
removed  from  the  looms  to  the  warehouse,  is  inspected,  and  imper- 
fect lots  are  rejected.  This  is  the  duty  of  the  warehouseman,  who, 
too,  will  have  already  examined  the  cotton  on  its  arrival  at  the  mill; 
the  bales  (the  original  packages  shipped  at  New  Orleans  or  Charles- 
ton) have  been  opened,  compared  with  sample,  carefully  examined 
throughout,  all  inferior  cotton,  all  stones  and  the  like,  being  sepa- 
rated by  the  women  or  young  men  employed  under  him.  To  his 
care,  also,  falls  the  due  delivery  of  the  finished  material  to  the  canal 
or  railway  which  takes  it  to  the  warehouse  in  Manchester.  Steam- 
power  is  under  the  control  of  a  foreman  engineer,  accountable  for 
the  true  working  and  repair  of  the  machinery,  for  the  supply  of  coal, 
for  the  lighting  of  the  factory  where  gas  is  made  on  the  premises,  and 
for  the  conduct  of  the  engineers  and  gasmen  under  him.  The  ware- 
housemen and  engineer,  like  the  foremen,  are  directly  under  the 
factory  manager,  as  are  the  watchman  and  the  timekeeper  ;  the 
former  looking  to  the  safety  of  the  buildings,  the  latter  to  the  due 
attendance  of  the  hands. 

Here,  so  far  as  the  actual  production  is  concerned,  ends  the 
organization.  If  we  follow  the  cloth  to  Manchester,  we  find  a  man- 
ager  at  the  warehouse,  who  sees  to  the  delivery  of  the  goods  ii  to 
order;  or  sells  them  if  made  for  stock.  It  is  his  duty  to  look  to  the 
prices  obtained,  the  orders  he  takes  and  their  due  transmission  to 
the  mill,  the  collection  of  accounts,  and  the  duties  respectively  per- 
formed by  the  salesmen,  clerks,  and  porters  under  him.  Bui  the 
counting-house  at  the  mill  is  under  a  separate  head,  responsible 
the  book-keeping,  the  rendering  of  accounts,  the  due  collection  of 
money,  the  correct  disbursements  in  purchases  and  for  v. 
well  as  for  the  efficiency  of  his  staff. 


132  ENGLAND. 

The  chiefs  of  the  three  departments  of  manufacture  and  sale— 
the  factory  manager  and  the  heads  of  the  Manchester  warehouse 
and  of  the  counting-house— are  in  their  turn  severally  responsible 
to  the  managing  partner,  the  supreme  controller.     But  the  purchase 
of  the  raw  material  is  so  important  a  point,  involving  as  it  does 
two-thirds  of  the  whole  expenditure,  that  it  is  very  rarely  intrusted 
to  a  subordinate.     It  is  one  of  the  special  occupations  of  the  manag- 
ing partner,  who  visits  Liverpool  on  market-days  or  as  occasion  may 
require,  goes  round  with  his  broker,  and  buys  such  cotton  as  in 
quality,  quantity,  and  price  may  suit  him.     The  cotton  itself  has 
been  picked  on  the  plantations  of  South  Carolina,  baled,  and  sent 
down  to  the  seaport,  whence  it  is  shipped  to  Liverpool,  either  pur- 
chased by,  or  consigned  to,  the  merchant  at  that  place,— the  mer- 
chant landing,  warehousing  it,  and  placing  samples  in  the  hands  of 
his  broker,  where  it  is  seen  by  the  buyer,  in  the  manner  already 
described.     Occasionally  these  intermediaries  are  dispensed  with; 
an  order  for  a  certain  quality  of  cotton  being  given  by  the  manu- 
facturer directly  to  the  merchant  at  Liverpool  or  Charleston.     But 
although  in  this  case  the  expenses  of  brokerage  and  of  the  Liver- 
pool warehouse   are  saved— no  inconsiderable  items  where  every 
thing  is  calculated  to  a  nicety— this  is  not  the  ride.     Such  a  trans- 
action is  legitimately  the  trade  of  the  merchant. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  managing  partner  is  the  pivot  on 
which  the  organization  turns.  All  the  departments  are  reviewed  by 
him.  He  settles  all  disputes,  and  specially  sees  that  all  transactions 
are  carried  out  with  the  scrupulous  fairness  that  has  made  the  repu- 
tation of  the  house.  He  decides  the  proportion  of  each  particular 
"make  "  of  cloth  which  the  factory  shall  turn  out,  and  instructs  the 
salesman  as  to  prices  and  credits.  He  in  his  turn  consults  his  part- 
ners as  to  a  common  view  of  the  future  course  of  the  markets,  as  to 
the  advisability  of  restricting  or  extending  sales  of  cloth  on  the  one 
hand,  or  of  purchases  of  cotton  on  the  other,  and  as  to  the  credit 
given  to  large  customers.  Such  is  the  system  of  central  organiza- 
tion characteristic  of  the  wealthy  partnerships  in  the  cotton  trade. 
The  cases  in  which  the  managing  partner  is  relieved  of  a  portion  of 
his  responsibilities  occur  most  frequently  when  the  supervision  of 
the  counting-house  and  Manchester  business  is  undertaken  by  some 
other  member  of  the  firm. 

The  aspect  of  one  of  the  great  ironworks  of  Yorkshire  is  very  dif- 
ferent. The  barren  treeless  waste,  the  lurid  fires  of  the  everlasting 
furnace,  the  overhanging  bank  of  smoke,  the  begrimed  appearance 
of  the  inhabitants,  the  railroad  running  into  the  works  with  'coal  and 


COMMERCIAL    ADMINISTRATION.  \\\\\ 

iron  Laden  trucks  moving  to  and  fro — these  mark  the  neighborhood 
Within  are  seen  the  numerous  calcining  ovens  and  conical   bli 
furnaces,   the  puddling  furnaces  and  rolling-mills  with   the  great 
steam-hammer,  vast  stacks  of  coal,  of  coke,  and  of  fire-bricks,  the 
foundry  with  its  chimney,  and  the  open  spaces  where  lie  th<    pro- 
ducts of  mill  and  furnace.     But  the  premises  are  not,  as  in  a  cotton 
manufactory,  self-contained.     In  adjacent  parts  of  the  country  arc 
situated  the  coal-mines,  the  ironstone  pits,  the  limestone  quarrii 
which,  the  property  of  the  concern,  produce  almost  every  t!  i 
quired  in  the  process  of  manufacture,  the  chief  exception  being  the 
fire-bricks,  usually  obtained  from  Staffordshire. 

The  organization  commences  at  the  seats  of  production,  the 
mines,  pits,  and  quarries,  each  of  which  is  presided  over  by  a  re- 
sponsible head.  In  the  former,  a  manager  controls  his  subordi- 
nates and  the  miners,  sees  that  the  wages  arc  duly  paid,  that  pro- 
duction is  on  a  fair  scale,  that  the  coal  is  turned  into  coke  in  the 
ovens  at  the  pit's  mouth  in  such  quantity  as  may  be  required,  and 
that  both  coal  and  coke  are  sent  off  as  wanted.  His  duties  arc.  in 
fact,  those  of  any  other  coal-mine  manager;  and  in  the  same  way, 
the  foreman  at  the  ironstone  pits,  and  the  foreman  at  the  limestone 
quarries,  are  responsible  for  the  work  done  by  the  miners  and  quar- 
rymen  respectively.  The  transport  of  the  material  to  the  works  and 
of  the  manufactured  iron  for  delivery,  by  means  of  the  short  lin 
of  railway  which  are  owned  by  the  concern,  is  a  matter  important 
enough  to  require  the  special  supervision  of  a  traffic  manager.  The 
locomotives  and  rolhng-stock,  the  engineers  and  firemen,  again, 
the  separate  charge  of  a  chief  engineer,  to  whom  also  falls  the  super- 
intendence of  the  extensive  machinery  used  for  the  blast-furnaces 
and  rolling-mills. 

The  processes  of  manufacture  at  the  works  are  ordinarily,  in- 
trusted to  two  distinct  managers,  whose  general  supervision  in  their 
respective  departments  includes  care  that  coal,  coke,  and  mat  rial 
are  supplied  as  wanted,  j)revention  of  waste,  the  regulation  of  the 
order  of  work,  and  the  delivery  of  the  goods  according  to  <  b  act, 
in  proper  time,  and  of  the  specified  quality.  The  one  restricts  bis 
attention  to  the  production  of  pig-iron,  having  under  him  a  foreman 
directly  responsible  for  the  work  done  by  the  hands  employed  at  the 
ovens,  where  the  ironstone  goes  through  the  first  process,  thai  of 
being  calcined  with  coal,  and  at  the  blast-furnaces,  in  which,  with  a 
due  proportion  of  coke  and  limestone,  the  calcined  ore  is  smelt 
and  run  into  pigs.  This  "pig-iron"  is  sold  as  such,  or  converted 
into  manufactured  iron  in  one  of  its  two  forms — malleable  or  c;. 


134  ENGLAND. 

These  latter  processes  involve,  as  has  been  said,  a  separate  depart- 
ment, distinctly  under  the  charge  of  another  manager.  Under  the 
latter  are  two  foremen.  The  first  of  these  is  responsible  for  the  out- 
turn of  the  puddling  furnaces,  steam-hammer,  and  rolling-mills,  by 
means  of  which  the  iron  is  made  malleable,  and  manufactured  into 
rails,  ship  and  boilerplates,  bars,  angle  and  T  iron.  His  duties  are 
not  light,  because  in  the  first  operation  he  has  to  do  with  the  pud- 
dlers,  the  most  independent  of  workmen.  For  a  puddler  must  not 
only  be 'skilled  in  his  work,  but  have  exceptional  powers  of  endur- 
ance ;  and  he  knows  his  value.  He  works  or  not,  and  for  a  longer 
or  for  a  shorter  time,  at  his  own  caprice,  and  when  work  presses, 
the  humoring  of  these  lusty  sons  of  toil  is  not  the  least  difficult  of 
the  foreman's  duties.  It  may  perhaps  be  here  explained  that  the 
puddler,  having  first  "  fettled  "  his  furnace,  puts  in  a  charge  of  pig- 
iron,  and  works,  or  "  puddles,"  it  in  a  molten  state  into  a  ball,  which 
is  taken  to  the  steam-hammer,  and  from  it,  as  "  a  bloom,"  is  rolled 
by  the  mills  into  bars,  when  it  is  cut  up,  reheated,  and  again  rolled 
into  the  marketable  forms  enumerated  above.  A  second  foreman 
has  the  control  of  the  foundry,  of  the  smiths  and  their  assistants,  of 
the  forges  for  the  casting  of  railway-chairs,  and  various  other  parts 
of  machinery. 

The  watchman  and  the  timekeeper  will  be  directly  under  the 
managers,  who,  again,  with  the  other  head  men  (the  managers  of 
the  mines,  pits,  and  quarries,  the  engineer  and  the  traffic  manager), 
are  responsible  to  the  chief  director  or  managing  partner,  to  whose 
authority  also,  as  in  other  manufacturing  concerns,  the  head  of  the 
counting-house  at  the  works,  intrusted  with  the  care  of  the  accounts, 
is  subject.  The  sale  of  the  goods  in  London  comes  within  the  prov- 
ince of  the  London  representative  of  the  house,  who  has  a  staff  under 
his  control,  charged  with  the  supervision  of  the  delivery  and  ship- 
ment of  the  iron,  and  with  the  collection  of  accounts.  But  the  Lon- 
don manager,  as  well  as  the  agents  employed  for  similar  purposes 
at  the  outposts  (Liverpool,  Hull,  and  other  places),  as  a  ride  take 
all  their  orders  from  the  managing  partner,  the  intercourse  often — 
in  the  case  of  the  agents  almost  invariably — being  carried  on  by 
correspondence. 

It  will  be  seen  that  here,  as  in  a  cotton  mill,  it  is  usual  to  place 
the  control  in  the  hands  of  one  man,  who  has  a  practical  knowledge 
of  every  department.  To  him  fall  the  decision  of  the  proportion  of 
each  kind  of  iron  to  be  made,  the  instructions  as  to  sales,  and  the 
entire  supervision.  He  consults  with  his  partners  as  to  the  general 
line  of  business  and  probable  course  of  the  markets,  and  is  some- 


COMMERCIAL    ADMINISTRATION.  1:;- 

times  assisted  in  one  or  other  special  department,  or  replaced  in  his 
absence,  by  one  of  them.  But,  as  a  rule,  he  baa  less  need  of  such 
aid  than  the  director  of  any  other  equally  important  business;  be- 
cause in  a  wealthy  ironworks  establishment  the  area  <>f  production 
is  its  own,  and,  its  manufacture  being  usually  sold  for  cash  on  deliv- 
ery, the  necessity  of  financial  combinations  is  of  rare  occur] 

Much  more  tranquil,  and  presenting  in  its  serene  exterior  a 
marked  contrast  to  the  bustle  and  agitation  which  pervade  thi 
centers  of  manufacturing  industry,  is  the  scene  that  we  may  d 
visit.  Quitting  one  of  the  busiest  thoroughfares  of  the  busiest  city 
of  the  world,  we  turn  through  the  corridor  into  a  house  that,  in 
years  gone  by,  has  been  the  dwelling  of  one  of  our  merchant  prim 
but  now  is  used  only  in  the  daytime  as  the  office  of  his  successors. 
The  quiet  and  order  of  the  great  room  first  entered,  with  its  thirty 
or  forty  clerks  separated  from  the  public  by  a  long  mahogany  coun- 
ter and  plate-glass  screens,  gives  a  pleasant  relief  to  the  nerves 
wearied  by  the  turmoil  outside.  In  both  the  previous  cases  the  ma- 
terial employed  and  the  process  of  manufacture  are  visible  enough. 
But  here,  the  center  whence  radiates  an  even  larger  business  than. 
either  of  the  others,  the  machinery  is  restricted  apparently  to  pens, 
ink,  and  paper.  It  is  in  fact,  a  directing  center  self-contained,  and 
this  principle  is  carried  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  For  in  the 
City,  the  business  of  the  present  day  is  so  subdivided — the  railway 
and  dock  companies  filling  the  offices  of  carriers  and  warehousemen, 
the  brokers  and  shipping  agents  attending  to  the  produce  dealt  in 
and  its  disposal — that  in  the  merchant's  office  itself  there  is  hardly 
any  sign  of  the  nature  of  the  special  trade  of  the  firm. 

Here  as  in  the  other  concerns,  there  are  frequently  partners  who 
visit  the  office,  have  then*  private  rooms,  interest  themselves  In  spe- 
cial departments,  and  are  periodically  consulted.  For  the  mi 
part,  however,  they  delegate  then*  responsibility.  As  a  const  quence 
of  the  more  varied  nature  of  the  business,  the  delegation  is  not,  in 
this  instance,  entirely  left  to  one  person.  There  is  a  working  or 
managing  partner  of  capabilities  and  experience,  such  as  are  de- 
manded in  the  other  administrations,  on  whom  devolves,  practically, 
the  general  control;  but  one  department,  the  finance,  is  distinctly 
the  charge  of  a  single  partner  gifted  with  a  special  aptitude.  In 
wealthy  manufactui'ing  concerns,  finance,  properly  so-called,  is  not 
known.  The  premises  belong  to  the  manufacturers  themselves,  w  bo 
have  ample  working  capital,  and  seldom  are  confronted  by  a  more 
impei*ious  necessity  than  that  of  a  temporary  overdraft  from  the 
banker  on  emergency.     But  in  a  merchant's  bui  however  lai 


136  ENGLAND. 

the  capital,  there  are  occasions  when  transactions  are  entered  into 
involving  amounts  of  much  greater  magnitude.  In  fact,  a  firm  that 
would  limit  its  operations  strictly  within  the  amount  of  its  capital 
would  not  be  availing  itself  of  its  legitimate  opportunities.  Now,  as 
it  is  a  principle  with  the  largest  and  wealthiest  houses  never  to  ob- 
tain advances  on  their  produce,  and  on  the  other  hand,  always  to 
keep  a  round  balance  with  their  bankers  and  a  large  sum  at  call  with 
one  of  the  great  discount  houses,  it  is  clear  that  some  special  finan- 
cial ability  is  required  to  provide  for  the  engagements  of  the  future, 
so  that  this  position  of  unassailable  solidity  may  be  at  all  times 
maintained.  This  is  the  duty  of  the  partner  indicated,  who  has 
directly  under  him  the  head  cashier.  The  latter,  presiding  over 
the  cash  department,  is  responsible  for  the  correctness  of  the  ac- 
ceptances and  checks  which  the  partner  signs,  for  the  due  pay- 
ment into  the  bank  of  all  incomings,  for  disbursements  of  all  kinds, 
and  specially,  a  correct  list  of  the  acceptances  of  the  firm  for  giving 
into  the  bankers  from  time  to  time. 

Another  distinctive  feature  of  a  merchant's  business  is,  that  all 
letters  and  documents  must  be  signed,  and  all  important  visitors 
seen,  by  a  partner.  As  the  managing  partner  is  frequently  out 
and  occasionally  absent,  it  follows  that  it  is  as  a  rule  arranged  that 
one  or  other  of  the  less  active  members  of  the  firm  shall  be  present 
to  act  in  these  capacities  if  required.  But  with  these  exceptions, 
the  centralization  of  authority  is  the  same  as  in  other  great  busi- 
ness establishments.  Besides  the  duties  enumerated,  the  manag- 
ing partner  has  to  review  all  business,  to  read  ah  letters  before 
they  go  the  round  of  the  departments,  to  see  the  more  important 
customers,  and  to  consult  with  the  other  partners  on  all  sjoecial 
occasions.  Responsible  to  him  for  their  several  departments  are 
the  following  head  clerks: — The  head  of  the  office,  who  takes  charge 
of  the  general  correspondence  and  all  matters  that  do  not  refer  to 
a  special  department,  having  under  him  also  the  clerks  intrusted 
with  the  postal  and  telegraph  services.  Directly  answerable  to 
him,  too,  are  such  subordinates  as  the  messengers,  porter,  and 
housekeeper.  Then  there  is  the  chief  of  the  shipping  department, 
accountable  for  all  charters  made,  and  for  all  matters  connected 
with  freightage.  In  the  produce  department,  again,  another  expert 
superintends  the  sale  and  due  delivery  of  all  produce  consigned  to 
the  house,  though  acting  to  a  certain  extent  under  the  immediate 
control  of  the  managing  partner,  who  as  a  rule  treats  immediately 
with  the  brokers.  For  the  convenience  of  communication  with 
the  controlling  head,  these  departments  are  not  unfrequently  to- 


COMMERCIAL    ADMINISTRATION.  \\\~ 

gether  in  the  one  large  room  or  general  office;  but  separate  rooms 
are  generally  allotted  to  the  book-keepers,  the  cider  office,  and 
insurance  department.  At  the  head  of  the  first  is  tin-  chief  book- 
keeper, responsible  for  the  correct  keeping  of  the  b  ioks  and  ren- 
dering of  accounts  by  the  numerous  staff  under  him.  The  I 
of  the  order  department  has  charge  of  the  due  execution  and  ship- 
ment of  all  orders  received  by  the  firm,  whether  it  be  an  order  for 
a  railroad  or  for  a  case  of  wine,  referring  in  only  the  more  imp 
taut  transactions  to  the  chief.  And  lastly,  the  head  of  the  insu- 
rance department  is  intrusted  with  the  important  duty  of  seeing 
that  all  goods  and  produce,  at  sea  or  in  warehouse,  are  lulls  cov- 
ered in  the  one  case  by  marine,  in  the  other  by  tire,  insurance.  In 
each  of  the  departments  there  are  numerous  clerks  answ  liable  to 
then-  respective  chiefs;  and  it  only  remains  to  be  said  that  the  lat- 
ter are  men  specially  qualified  to  secure  the  discharge  of  the  dif- 
ferent services  in  the  best  and  least  expensive  fashion.  It  is  in 
the  selection  of  fit  men  for  these  posts  that  the  administrative 
ability  of  the  responsible  head  of  all  is  proved. 

This  then  is  the  organization  of  a  banking  house.  It  will  have 
been  observed  that  these  firms  have  their  special  bankers,  and  it 
will  be  expedient  here  to  explain  the  difference  exist  in--  between 
the  two  classes  of  business — a  banking  house  and  a  bank.  Bankers 
proper  carry  on  a  trade  which  is  often  larger  in  amount  and  is 
made  up  of  more  numerous  transactions,  but  which  knows  nothing 
of  the  complex  oj)erations  familiar  to  the  former.  A  banker  mainly 
receives  money  on  deposit  to  lend  it  out  on  sufficient  security, 
making  his  profit  from  the  difference  of  interest  paid  and  received 
.  The  largest  London  merchants  entitle  themselves  banking  hotels 
because  then*  business,  although  distinctly  embracing  that  of  a 
merchant,  chiefly  consists  in  finding  the  means  for  the  trade  of 
other  merchants,  having  houses  either  in  the  colonies  or  in  foreign 
countries,  with  remuneration  by  commission  and  not  by  results. 
Of  the  nature  of  their  dealings  a  fan*  notion  has  been  given,  and, 
it  may  be  added,  their  business  connection  is  always  carefully  se- 
lected and  exceptionally  well  treated.  For  in  great  crises,  when 
the  value  of  produce  threatens  to  fall  below  that  of  the  advance 
made  upon  it,  such  a  firm  will  not  sacrifice  its  customers  to  save 
itself,  but  will  hold  the  depreciated  article  for  a  recovery  with  a 
foresight  doing  credit  alike  to  its  honor  and  courage. 

The  term  millionaire  might,  without  some   explanation,  give  a 
false  impression  as  to  the  amount  of  capital  embarked  in  the  lo 
industries.     It  is  a  rare  occurrence — such  instances  might,  in  fact, 


138  ENGLAND. 

be  enumerated  in  a  few  lines — when  an  individual  partner  has  so 
much  as  one  million  sterling  invested  in  his  business.  But  applied 
to  the  richer  partners  in  wealthy  concerns,  the  title  is  not  a  misno- 
mer, for  these  will  have  considerable  property,  in  land  and  person- 
alty, in  other  directions.  In  truth,  manufacturing  limits  by  its  very 
nature  the  amount  of  money  that  can  be  usefully  employed.  Thus 
in  a  cotton  factory  it  may  be  said  that  a  capital  of  £500,000  actually 
invested  in  buildings,  plant,  and  current  business,  would  represent 
one  of  the  very  largest  concerns,  and  in  an  ironworks  estabhshment, 
double  this  sum.  In  the  former  trade,  this  limit  is  seldom  exceeded; 
in  the  latter  there  are  one  or  two  cases  in  which  the  capital  is  greater. 
The  simplest  way  of  giving  a  notion  of  the  magnitude  of  the  dealings 
of  such  firms  will  be  to  remark  that  the  capital  invested  is  turned 
over  not  less  than  twice  in  the  year:  this  would  represent  a  mini- 
mum average  daily  expenditure  for  material  and  wages  of  over 
£3,000  in  the  one  case,  and  of  over  £6,000  in  the  other,  and  of 
receipts  of  like  amounts.  And  it  may  be  added  that  a  return  of  7| 
per  cent,  on  the  total  capital,  or  of  £37,500  and  £75,000  respectively, 
would  represent  the  amount  which  in  ordinary  times  would  be  an- 
nually divisible  amongst  the  partners.  It  is  more  difficult  to  esti- 
mate the  resources  of  a  representative  banking  house,  because  the 
opportunities  which  offer  of  large  operations  hardly  inrpose  a  limit 
on  the  amount  that  can  from  time  to  time  be  made  use  of.  The 
percentage  of  profits,  too,  has  a  wider  range  from  year  to  year.  In 
one  or  two  cases,  the  means  employed  are  exceptionally  large.  Apart 
from  these,  a  house  with  a  working  capital  of  two  millions  would 
stand  in  quite  the  front  rank;  and  as  this  capital  is  turned  over 
more  frequently,  if  at  smaller  profits  than  in  manufacturing,  and 
as  the  transactions  are  not  confined  to  cash,  advances  being  fre- 
quently made  by  acceptances,  it  will  readily  be  perceived  that  the 
average  daily  volume  of  business  of  such  a  firm  wall  amount  to  a 
more  than  considerable  sum. 

A  second  notable  peculiarity  is,  that  although  there  may  be  many 
partners,  yet,  as  a  rule,  the  practical  management  of  a  large  concern 
is  left  to  one  managing  partner  responsible  to  the  others  for  what  is 
done,  and  who  is  not  only  a  man  of  proved  capacity,  but  one  thor- 
oughly acquainted  with  the  working  of  each  and  every  department. 
The  exception  is,  as  has  been  shown,  in  a  merchant's  business  where 
finance  is  required.  There  are  instances  where  the  different  part- 
ners take  each  his  special  department  and  its  responsibility.  In 
many  concerns,  too,  there  is  a  senior  partner  whose  stake  is  the 
largest,  and  whose  right  of  veto  is  almost  absolute.     But,  generally 


COMMERCIAL    ADMIXISTRA  TION.  1 1 :: i 

speaking,  the  partners,  though  present  when  they  III  !   con- 

sulted on  all  important  occasions  as  well  as  on  the  general  lint  - 
of  business,  and  probably  interesting  themselves  in  one  or  othi  r 
department,  do  not  interfere  with  the  working  of  the  business.  The 
veto  and  the  right  to  interfere  are  not  surrendered,  but  are  held  in 
abeyance  so  long  as  it  seems  that,  in  the  interests  of  all  the  direct- 
ing control  should  be  in  the  hands  of  one,  and  of  the  ablest, 

There  are,  necessarily,  questions  which  will  arise  that  cannot  be 
dealt  with  except  by  a  consensus  of  opinion.  National  movements, 
as  they  may  affect  the  general  interest,  specially  fall  within  this 
category.  Whatever  may  be  the  bias  of  the  individual  members  of 
a  firm,  all  can  keenly  appreciate,  not  only  fiscal  measures,  but  the 
general  policy  of  a  ministry  as  affecting  peace  or  war.  Although 
war  may  temporarily  benefit  this  or  the  other  industry,  vet  a  more 
lasting  and  necessary  element  of  prosperity  is  that  security  which 
alone  guarantees  a  proper  outlet  for  the  whole  trade  of  the  country; 
for  depression  in  one  trade  will  inevitably,  sooner  or  later,  react  on 
the  others.  Manufacturers  have,  in  particular,  to  watch  with  jealous 
care  the  proceedings  of  their  Continental  rivals,  so  as  to  keep  pace 
with  them  in  all  improvements;  and  the  spinner  has  specially  to  look 
to  the  state  and  prospects  of  trade  in  the  United  States.  But  the 
merchant,  it  may  be  said,  must  have  steadily  in  view  the  position 
of  affairs  in  all  parts  of  the  globe.  Disturbances  in  the  colonies  or 
at  home,  anticipations  of  Continental  warfare,  a  quarrel  with  the 
distant  Chinese,  revolutions  in  South  America: — all  these  things 
mean  to  him  limited  trade,  lower  prices,  distrust  and  loss.  He 
must  also  have  an  exceptional  power  to  gauge  the  movements  of  the 
money  market,  so  as  not  to  be  led  to  mistake  a  warning  that  indi- 
cates temporary  disaster  for  one  which  is  the  herald  of  that  m<  >st 
terrible  of  mercantile  evils,  a  crisis,  with  its  attendant  perils,  not 
only  of  heavy  losses,  but  of  absolute  collapse  to  even  the  strongest 
houses,  if  their  ramifications  are  too  wide. 

Another  special  aspect  of  the  matter  is  the  advantage  possessed 
by  the  largest  concerns  over  then-  smaller  rivals.  This  is  an  impor- 
tant element  of  their  success.  Their  means  and  the  amount  of  their 
dealings  give  them  the  command  of  markets,  whilst  their  old  estab- 
lished connection  and  repute  for  fail"  dealing  secure  them  the  1 
customers.  The  proportion  of  their  incidental  expenses,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  withdrawals  of  the  partners,  to  the  amount  of  busin 
done,  is  much  less,  and  this  tends  to  rapid  accumulations.  And 
lastly,  they  are  not  forced  to  sell  their  goods,  and  so  to  accept  pur- 
chasers of  doubtful  solidity.     They  have  thus  immunity  from  bad 


140  ENGLAND. 

debts,  and  from  that  dire  necessity  to  make  ends  meet  which  often 
in  smaller  concerns  takes  up  time  urgently  required  in  other 
directions. 

In  leaving  the  subject  of  the  administration  of  the  representative 
businesses  of  the  country,  it  is  perhaps  well  to  say  that  the  systems 
which  superficially  would  appear  to  be  severally  the  outcome  of  a 
master  mind,  are  not  so  in  reality.  They  have  grown  piecemeal 
from  small  beginnings  to  the  completed  structure.  The  organiza- 
tion which  turns  out  millions  of  pounds  of  cotton  in  perfect  cloth, 
or  from  tons  of  coal  and  ore  produces  our  iron  roads,  or  constructs 
a  railway  or  a  dry-dock  in  a  foreign  country,  has  been  built  up  bit 
by  bit,  as  occasion  has  seemed  to  demand. 


CHAPTER    X. 

THE    WORKING    CLASSES. 

Numbers  find  Influence  of  English  Working  Men — Great  Variety  of  the  Work- 
ing Classes  and  Happy  Results  of  the  Variety— Attitude  of  the  Working 
Classes  towards  the  State — Difference  between  French  and  English  Worl 
Men  in  Congress— Principles  on  which  the  State  in  England  interferes  be- 
tween Employer  and  Employed— Factory  Legislation — General  Working  of 
Factory  Acts,  and  the  Evils  which  they  have  prevented— Relative  Powers 
of  Factory  Acts  and  Education  Acts — Educational  Reforms  .till  wanted  in 
Manufacturing  Districts — Social  and  Industrial  Reforms  yet  wanted — The 
Truck  System  not  entirely  removed  by  Legislation — State  of  the  Working 
Classes  in  the  Black  Country — Mining  England  :  its  General  Characteristics 
and  Varieties — Special  Types  of  Miners  and  Features  of  Mining — Relatione 
between  Employers  and  Employed — The  Good  Siile  of  Trades  Unions 
bitration  and  Conciliation — Working  Men  in  Parliament — Differences  be- 
tween the  Working  Classes  in  London  and  the  Provinces. 


■*t> 


ENGLAND,  which  has  been  called  the  nation  of  shop-keepers, 
might  with  equal  truth  be  described  as  the  empire  of  working 
men.  They  bear  a  larger  numerical  proportion  to  the  rest  of  the 
population  in  England  than  in' any  other  European  country;  they 
have  more  freedom;  they  exercise  more  direct  political  inliuence. 
They  comprise  about  half  the  inhabitants  of  Great  Britain  south  of 
the  Tweed,  and  may  be  estimated  at  a  total  of  from  fifteen  to  seven- 
teen millions.  There  is  hardly  a  city  in  the  realm  which,  if  they 
were  resolutely  minded  to  do  so,  they  could  not  turn  into  a  state  of 
siege.  A  well-concerted  rising  on  then  part  in  any  of  the  g] 
centers  of  manufacture  and  commerce  woidd  not  merely  terroi 
a  district,  but  paralyze  the  trading  system  of  the  empire.  As  they 
are  the  ultimate  depositories  of  physical,  so  are  they  also  of  political 
power.  The  parliamentary  suffrage  has  been  carried  into  the  squalid 
alleys  and  the  mean  courts  of  our  large  towns — the  abode  of  the  com- 
pound householder  and  the  lodger  voter.  It  cannot  be  long  before 
the  humblest  cottagers  in  agricultural  England  will  enjoy  the  same 
privilege,  or  claim  successfully  the  same  right.  Yet  absolutely  su- 
preme as,  in  the  last  instance,  the  working  men  of  England  are  in 
the  government  of  England,  our  rulers,  and  the  ruling  classi 


I 


142  ENGLAND. 

erally,  do  not  recognize  in  that  supremacy  the  source  either  of  politi- 
cal or  social  peril.  We  have  agitators  and  firebrands  about  us  who 
talk  of  a  trembling  constitution  and  a  tottering  dynasty.  But  we 
think  we  have  reason  to  know  that  wild  words  like  these  awake  no 
responsive  echo  of  insurrectionary  enthusiasm  in  the  breast  of  the 
great  majority  of  that  audience  to  which  they  are  addressed.  We 
believe  in  the  stability  of  the  regime  under  which  we  live.  In  other 
words,  we  have  faith  in  the  good  sense,  the  good  feeling,  and  the 
political  docility  of  the  English  working  man. 

How  is  it  that  we  have  in  England  so  well-grounded  a  confidence 
in  the  orderly  conduct  of  that  preponderating  element  in  our  pop- 
ulation, which  is  the  cause  of  alarm,  danger  and  restrictive  legislation 
abroad '?  One  answer  is  to  be  found  in  the  very  fact  which  makes  a 
comprehensive  survey  of  the  English  working  classes,  in  any  thing 
like  a  limited  space,  almost  impossible.  There  is  as  much  variety  of 
opinion  and  of  ambition  among  the  working  classes  in  England  as 
among  those  above  them.  They  include  as  many  sections  and 
schools,  differences  as  wide,  and  divisions  as  deep,  as  the  upper 
classes,  or  as  that  complex  multitude  known  as  the  middle  classes. 
It  is  therefore  impossible  to  label  them  with  any  single  epithet  or 
any  one  characteristic,  unless,  indeed,  it  should  be  said  that  they 
are  law-abiding.  This  diversity  of  thought,  belief,  and  aim  amongst 
the  toilers  of  England  is  at  once  the  consequence  and  the  cause  of 
exceptional  national  advantages.  It  results  mainly  from  the  abso- 
lute and  unfettered  freedom  of  opinion  and  speech  which  is  enjoyed 
in  this  country.  The  right  of  public  meetings  and  demonstrations 
is  established.  We  have  a  press  which  may  even  verge  on  license 
with  impunity.  No  attempt  is  made  to  check  free  discussion  and 
conversation  on  the  part  of  working  men  who  assemble  together 
in  club-rooms  or  at  lectures.  There  are  associations  of  working  men 
who  take  their  stand  upon  the  "  true  principles  of  democracy,"  and 
who  decline  publicly,  or  in  the  printed  declaration  of  their  political 
faith,  to  pledge  their  adherence  to  the  existing  constitution  in  Church 
or  State.  They  aim  at  "  self-government  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the 
term,"  in  other  words,  at  universal  adult  suffrage,  and  they  propose 
to  consider  "  any  system  of  representation  upon  a  narrower  basis  to 
be  nothing  less  than  disguised  despotism."  Since  "  virtue  and  ca- 
pacity, not  wealth  or  birth,  are  to  be  recognized  as  the  essential 
attributes  of  the  legislative  body,"  it  follows  that  "all  hereditary 
privileges  are  to  be  abolished."*     After  the  enunciation  of  points 

*  These  -words  are  taken  from  the  prospectus  of  the  Eleusis  Club,  Chelsea—  a 
fairly  representative  and  well  managed  institution. 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  \\\\ 

of  the  new  charter  so  drastic  and  uncompromising  as  these,  il  will 
surprise  no  one  to  be  told  that  there  are  included  in  the  programme 
such  demands  of  minor  revolutionary  import  us  the  shorter  duration 
of  Parliaments;  payment  of  members  of  Parliament  from  the  Impe- 
rial taxation,  and  of  election  expenses  from  local  taxation;  complete 
separation  of  Church  and  State;  compulsory  secular  and  free  edu- 
cation. Such  a  propaganda  as  this  may  sound  appalling,  bul  is 
really  harmless.  Its  promoters  may  speak  daggers,  hut  they  use 
and  desire  to  use  none.  The  association  itself  which  is  commits  1 
to  such  principles  is  social  more  than  political,  and  belongs  to  an 
order  of  institution  which,  as  we  shall  a  little  later  see,  is  a  son 
of  unmixed  good  to  the  working  classes  themselves — the  working 
man's  club.  The  simple  truth  is,  that  the  rather  full-flavored  pro- 
spectus acts  as  one  of  the  many  constitutional  safety-valves  with 
which  this  favored  country  is  provided.  In  a  land  of  civil  liberty, 
in  which  political  discontent  seldom  advances  beyond  the  negati 
stage,  or  when  it  assumes  a  positive  form,  and  is  not  without  b< 
justification  in  fact,  immediately  commands  the  attention  and  the 
action  of  the  Legislature,  words  can  have  no  alarming  sound  i  c 
the  powers  that  be.  They  are  the  mere  exhibition  of  transient  hu- 
mors, or,  at  worst,  exaggerations  and  caricatures  of  fitful  phases  of 
the  popular  mind. 

As  this  variety  of  feeling  among  the  English  working  classes  is 
the  result  of  a  state  of  things  under  which  free  play  is  allowed  to 
every  mind  and  to  every  tongue,  so  is  one  of  our  chief  guarantees 
against  domestic  troubles,  and  democratic  discontent,  to  be  found 
in  its  effects.     To  coerce  the  multitude  is  too  often  to  consolida 
sedition.     Englishmen  are  law-abiding,  because  they  are  persuad 
that  it  is  the  honest  intention  of  the  law  to  be  fair  to  all  alike,  and 
because  they  believe  that  in  the  long  run  the  Legislature  docs  not 
neglect  their  true  interests.     If  this  belief  did  not  exist  the  spirit 
abroad  would  be  that,  not  of  reverence,  but  resistance  to  the  law, 
and  there  would  be  a  real  danger  lest  the  working  classes  should 
organize  themselves  into  a  compact  mass  of  antagonism  to  the 
ing  state  of  things.     Once  destroy  this  infinite  complexity  of  thou 
and  feeling,  and  a  real  step  will  have  been  taken  towards  uniting 
these  heterogeneous  groups  and  loosely  coherent  sections  into  one 
solid  mass,  which  may  form  a  serious  menace  to  the  institutions  of 
the  State. 

As  English  workmen  differ  in  their  opinions,  so  do  they  in  their 
worth.  There  is  the  honest  toiler,  who  has  his  machine  ready  to 
begin  work  on  the  first  beat  of  the  engine,  and  the  saunt<  rer  who, 


144  ENGLAND. 

as  Mr.  John  Morley  in  speaking  of  Lancashire  puts  it,  "  matches  the 
minutes  like  a  lazy  schoolboy."  The  best  type  of  artisan  in  a  mill 
is  as  good  as  the  best  type  of  active  humanity  anywhere  else,  and 
the  best  type  abounds.  The  fact  is  that  the  British  working  man, 
however  energetically  the  attempt  may  be  made  to  lash  him  up 
into  revolutionary  fervor,  cannot  divest  himself  of  the  conservative 
instincts  of  his  race.  He  may  be  liberal,  or  radical,  or  even  demo- 
cratic; but  so  long  as  the  shoe  does  not  pinch  he  has  no  wish  to 
change  it  for  another  that  perhaps  will.  This  rough  estimate  of  the 
English  ouvrier  must  be  accompanied — there  are  certain  preachers 
of  the  industrial  revolution  who  would  say  corrected — by  reference 
to  particular  traits.  Both  his  vices  and  his  virtues  haye  been  un- 
necessarilv  and  unwarrantablv  looked  at  through  a  magnifving  glass. 
He  is  no  more  uniformly  sober  than  he  is  uniformly  drunken.  He 
is  no  more  exclusively  the  creature  of  club  life — important  though 
the  club  be  as  a  factor  in  his  civilization — than  he  is  of  pot-house 
life.  The  public-house  continues  to  be  the  house  of  call  for  a  too 
large  percentage  of  his  order,  and  the  publican's  pocket  the  bot- 
tomless pit  into  which  an  undue  proportion  of  his  wages  finds  its 
way.  A  socially  and  morally  perfect  and  faultless  working  man  is 
as  impossible  as  the  irredeemably  vicious  baronet  in  novels,  or  the 
spotless  angelic  child  in  nursery  story-books. 

There  is  much  on  which  we  may  congratulate  ourselves  in  the 
conceptions  which  the  working  man  entertains  of  the  functions  of 
the  State,  and,  in  a  general  way,  of  the  position  of  its  governors. 
He  may  call  himself  a  democrat,  but  he  is  in  practice  a  very  good 
subject  of  the  monarchy.  He  may  profess  belief  in  the  perfectibil- 
ity of  mankind  as  a  consequence  of  the  establishment  of  a  republi- 
can form  of  government,  but  he  has  not  the  slightest  wish  to  do 
violence  to  the  tenure  of  the  Crown.  There  are,  indeed,  two  things 
that  have  become  customary  among  us  of  which  he  does  not  approve, 
which  it  may  be  even  said  he  does  not  understand.  He  declines  to 
admit  that  the  resettlement  of  the  financial  relations  between  the 
people  and  the  Crown,  which  was  made  at  the  commencement  of  the 
present  reign,  justifies  the  grants  that  are  voted  by  Parliament  to 
members  of  the  royal  family  on  such  occasions  as  marriage.  He 
will,  indeed,  admit  that  this  is  preferable  to  the  periodic  demands 
which  were  formerly  presented  to,  and  conceded  by,  Parliament  for 
the  payment  of  debts  incurred  by  princes  of  the  blood,  but  he  is 
not  satisfied  as  to  the  justice  or  necessity  of  these  substitutes.  He 
is  equally  unable  or  indisposed  to  see  that  placemen  and  pen- 
sioners are  any  thing  else  than  abuses  incarnated  in  human  shape. 


i 


THE    WORKING    CLASS!  :s.  ]  < -, 

He  wishes  that  high  officials  of  State — Primp  Minister,  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, and  the  like — should  be  paid,  and  well  paid.  Bui  when  the 
season  of  work  is  over  he  considers  that  their  claim  upon  the  j  ublic 
funds  is  at  an  end.  He  applies  the  principle  of  a  good  day's  v, 
for  a  good  day's  labor  in  the  most  generous  sense  i,>  fche  learned 
professions,  but  he  is  emphatically  opposed  to  the  Bolid  remunera- 
tion of  -well-earned  leisure. 

Tenacious  of  his  own  rights,  he  is  the  last  person  in  the  world/to 
deny  the  possession  of  rights  to  his  employer,  and  he  displays  no 
inclination  to  impose  fancifully  exacting  duties  upon  Government 
for  the  enforcement  of  what  is  due  to  himself.  Here  it  is  thai  tie 
English  working  man  may  be  compared  advantageously  with  the 
working  man  of  other  countries.  There  is  less  tendency  to  social- 
ism here  than  amongst  other  peoples  of  the  old  world  or  of  the  new. 
The  English  working  man  takes,  for  the  most  part,  a  view  admirably 
practical  and  temperate  of  the  functions  of  the  State.  The  national 
workshops  of  revolutionary  France  have  no  attraction  for  him.  He 
makes  none  of  those  extravagant  claims  upon  the  protection  of  the 
State  in  the  regvdation  of  his  daily  labor  and  of  the  rate  of  his  wages 
which  are  current  among  the  working  classes  of  America  and  Trance, 
and  which  cause  a  certain  form  of  socialism  to  be  equally  the  pest  of 
the  Great  Republic  and  the  greatest  military  empire  the  world  has 
seen.  When  a  congress  of  English  working  men  discuss  their  con- 
dition, they  do  so  in  its  relation  to  the  State.  "When  a  congress  of 
French  working  men  meet,  the  State  and  its  legislation  are  entirely 
ignored,  and  the  assumption  which  underlies  the  arguments  of  all 
speakers  is  that  the  economic  relations  of  society  must  be  trans- 
formed if  civilization  is  to  advance.  The  difference  between  French 
and  English  working  men  could  not  be  better  put  than  in  a  passage 
froin  an  article  on  a  French  working  man's  congress,  contribnt  ed  by 
Mr.  Frederic^  Harrison  to  the  Fortnightly  Review  of  Julv,  1878: — 

1 

"The  Frencli  Congress  is  in  marked  contrast  to  the  English  assemblies. 

With  ns  the  discussions  turn  entirely  on  matters  of  practical  legislation;  cer- 
tain bills  before  Parliament  are  to  be  supported  or  opposed;  certain  official 
inquiries,  regulations,  or  concessions  are  demanded.  Nine-tenths  of  wh 
on  in  an  English  Trades  Union  Congress  has  relation  to  the  House  or  the  Home 
Office.  There  is  nothing  of  the  kind  at  Lyons.  There  not  a  single  bill  pending 
at  Versailles  is  even  mentioned  throughout  the  discussions;  no  reference  t  •  a 
single  parliamentary  party  or  even  politician;  there  is  not  a  public  man,  no!  a 
single  employer,  not  a  public  writer  with  whom  the  Congress  has  the  smallest 
relation,  or  in  whom  it  seems  to  put  the  slightest  confidence.  The  Badioals, 
the  extreme  Left,  are  all  treated  as  being  just  as  hostile  as  the  extreme  I  tight ;  t 
most  ultra-republican  journals,  including  that  of  M.  llochcfort,  arc  utterly  re- 

10 


146  ENGLAND. 

pudiated;  indeed,  M.  Rochefort  is  called  the  Red  Jesuit;  nor  is  there  a  single 
capitalist  who  seems  to  be  in  the  slightest  degree  of  contact  with  them.  Now 
in  England  we  know  there  are  dozens  of  members  of  Parliament,  and  even 
members  of  governments,  and  that  on  both  sides,  from  whom  the  bills  of  our 
workmen's  congresses  receive  active  support;  at  every  annual  meeting  there  are 
great  employers  and  great  capitalists,  public  men  and  public  writers,  in  con- 
stant intercourse  with  them.  Men  in  the  same  position  as  Mr.  Brassey,  Mr. 
Mundella,  Mr.  Forster,  Mr.  Chamberlain,  Mr.  Samuel  Morley,  Lord  Lichfield, 
Mr.  Hughes,  and  the  like,  are  utterly  unknown  in  the  French  movement.  The 
idea  of  popular  conservative  employers  is  still  more  completely  incomprehenrji- 
ble.  Such  a  man  as  Mr.  Cross,  a  Conservative  Minister  of  the  Interior,  legaliz- 
ing trades  unions  and  codifying  the  vast  network  of  factory  legislation,  would 
indeed  be  a  portent  in  France.  It  is  clear  that  the  legislature  in  France  is  im- 
mensely behind  that  of  England  in  its  interest  in  labor  questions;  that  the 
political  and  powerful  classes  in  France  are  in  no  sort  of  real  contact  with  the 
workmen;  and  that  great  employers  or  great  landowners  having  their  confi- 
dence can  hardly  be  said  to  exist.  One  cannot  fail  to  see  how  far  more  truly 
the  governing  classes  in  England  in  their  own  way  sympathize  with,  and  work 
at,  the  great  social  problems;  how  much  less  sharp  is  the  antagonism  of  class 
here;  how  much  the  English  laborers  owe  to  that  mass  of  protective  legislation, 
against  which  the  men  and  women  with  a  crotchet  are  so  urgent  in  protesting. 
At  Lyons,  M.  Gambetta  is  simply  a  bourgeois  politician;  M.  de  Marcere  is  sim- 
ply a  continuation  of  M.  de  Fourtou;  Victor  Hugo  is  simply  a  poet;  and  Jules 
Simon  is  merely  an  intriguer.  The  French  workmen  still  cling  to  their  old  idea 
of  fashioning  the  future  by  themselves  alone — though  now,  be  it  said,  without 
subversive  measures,  without  legislation,  and  even  without  the  State." 

In  the  course  of  the  last  fifty  years  we  have  had  an  entire  series 
of  legislative  enactments  devised  for  the  protection  of  women  and 
children  engaged  in  different  kinds  of  industry.  The  form  which 
this  State  interference  has  assumed  has  been  of  various  kinds.  It 
has  prohibited  the  working  of  women  and  children  beyond  a  cer- 
tain number  of  hours,  and  in  the  case  of  children  it  has  even  en- 
forced a  certain  qualification  of  knowledge  as  well  as  of  years.  The 
principle  on  which  the  State  in  these  matters  has  throughout  pro- 
ceeded is  that  it  is  bound  to  protect  those  who  cannot  protect  them- 
selves, and  that  within  this  category  children  and  women  come. 
The  observance  of  these  laws  is  guaranteed,  so  far  as  it  is  possible 
to  guarantee  them,  by  an  elaborate  system  of  State  inspection.  In- 
spectors are  continually  paying  surprise  visits  to  see  that  there  is  no 
infraction  of  the  laws  regulating  the  employment  of  women  and 
children,  and  that  the  sanitary  condition  of  the  factories  and  the 
workshops  in  which  men  are  employed  is  satisfactory.  Thus  every 
thing  which  could  encourage  the  idea  that  the  State  is  under  the 
most  minute  and  positive  obligations  to  the  working  man  has  been 
done  by  the  Legislature.  Could  there,  then,  be  any  more  con- 
clusive testimony  to  the  sanity  of  working  men's  views  of  the  re- 


THE   IVOR  KING   CLASSES.  M7 

sponsibilities  of  the  Govcrruent  than  the  circumstance  that  in  all 
this  time  not  one  petition  has  been  presented  to  Parliament  praying 
for  any  interference  with  the  conditions  of  adult  male  labor?  Fur- 
ther, it  must  be  remembered  that  the  demand  for  factory  legisla- 
tion came,  not  from  the  operatives  in  factories  themselves,  but 
from  eminent  philanthropists  outside — Lord  Shaftesbury  ami  others. 
!  Public  opinion  amongst  the  working  classes  does  what  it  docs  not 
do  in  America,  Germany,  France,  or  Switzerland;  it  draws  the  line, 
short  of  which  legislative  interference  must  stop,  at  the  daily  work 
of  full-grown  men,  and  the  right  of  free  contract  between  employed 
and  employer.  Wherever  it  has  been  tried,  interference  beyond 
these  limits  has  proved  a  blunder  and  a  failure.  In  the  United 
States  it  has  broken  dowm.  In  Switzerland,  where  it  was  introduced 
in  1877,  it  is  the  reverse  of  a  success.  In  Germany  and  in  France  it 
has  paved  the  way  for  the  propagation  of  Socialism.  It  is  contended 
by  Mr.  Fawcett  and  other  authorities  that  the  responsibilities  with 
which  the  law  charges  itself  in  the  case  of  the  labor  of  women  are 
an  infraction  on  the  right  of  free  contract.  Practically,  the  vindica- 
tion of  such  interference  seems  complete.  In  the  first  place,  it  works 
well;  in  the  second,  it  cannot  be  asserted  that  the  average  woman  is 
at  any  period  of  her  life  a  free  agent  in  the  sense  that  a  man  is  a 
free  agent.  Up  to  the  age  of  eighteen  she  is  subject  to  the  au- 
thority of  her  parents,  and  a  very  grinding  despotism  that  authority 
often  is.  If  at  the  age  of  eighteen  she  marries — and  early  marriages 
are  the  rule  among  the  working  classes — she  becomes  little  more 
than  the  chattel  of  her  husband. 

Though  it  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  this  work  to  trace 
the  history  of  factory  legislation,  it  is  necessary  briefly  to  summarize 
certain  central  stages  in  its  progress.  The  factory  legislation  of  to- 
day is  the  work  of  rather  more  than  three-quarters  of  a  century. 
Starting  from  what  was  merely  an  Apprentices'  Act  in  1802,  when 
the  factory  system  was  in  its  infancy,  and  nearly  all  for  whom  it  pro- 
vided employment  were  regularly  apprenticed,  it  reached,  in  the 
Consolidation  Act  of  1878,  a  culminating  point  of  efficiency  and 
comprehensiveness,  beyond  which,  in  the  present  century,  it  is 
likely  to  advance.  The  Act  of  1802,  which  provided  for  the  better 
clothing,  better  sleeping  rooms,  and  the  separation  of  the  sexes  in 
the  case  of  apprentices  only,  was  extended  eight,  and  again  twenty- 
three,  years  later  to  all  boys  and  girls  engaged  in  factories,  whether 
they  were  apprentices  or  not.  But  none  of  these  provisions,  how- 
ever admirable  in  design,  accomplished  much  in  practice,  ' 
simple  reason  that  the  law  did  not  supply  the  means 


f 


148  ENGLAND. 

them.  It  was  a  further  defect  that  they  only  applied  to  cotton,  and 
not  to  woolen  or  worsted  factories.  In  1833,  all  textile  factories 
were  included  in  the  Act,  inspectors  were  established,  and  the  hours 
of  labor,  of  young  persons  and  children  only,  were  limited  to  twelve 
a  day,  it  being  left  entirely  to  the  discretion  of  the  employer  between 
what  hours  the  work  should  be  done,  subject  to  the  one  condition 
that  it  should  not  be  carried  on  during  the  night. 

It  was  not  till  eleven  years  later,  1844,  that  any  legislation  at  all 
adequate  to  the  complexity  and  vital  importance  of  the  matter  be- 
came an  accomplished  fact.  In  that  year,  the  principle  was  asserted 
that  the  law  owed  the  duties  of  protection  to  women  as  well  as  chil- 
dren, and  since  that  date  factory  legislation  has  applied  to  female 
workers  as  well  as  to  then*  youthful  sons  and  daughters.  At  the 
same  time  the  machinery  guaranteeing  obedience  to  the  law  was 
improved;  regular  holidays  were  established  in  addition  to  Good 
Friday  and  Christinas  Day.  It  was  also  enacted  that  the  machinery 
should  be  fenced.  Yet  even  thus  the  parliamentary  statute  was  fre- 
quently evaded,  and,  as  the  employers  worked  by  relays  of  women 
and  children,  the  insj^ectors  could  never  certainly  know  what  was 
the  precise  hour  at  which  the  operations  of  a  particular  group  had 
commenced.  Meanwhile  the  Factory  Act  had  been  extended  to 
print  works,  and  the  ten-hours  movement  had  made  great  advances, 
but  ten  hours  as  the  limit  of  time  for  the  employment  of  women  and 
young  persons  was  not  conceded  till  twelve  years  after,  and,  instead, 
a  compromise  of  ten  and  a  half  hours  daily  was  admitted.  In  1801 
bleach-works,  and  in  1864  paper-staining,  lucifer  match  making, 
potteries,  and  cartridge-making,  and  all  deleterious  employments 
were  brought  under  the  operation  of  the  Act.  In  1867  the  Factory 
Acts  Extension  Act  and  the  Workshops  Regulation  Act  were  both 
passed — the  practical  effect  of  the  two  combined  being  to  bring  all 
occupations  in  which  women  and  young  persons  were  employed 
under  regulation  and  restriction.  Especially  was  the  influence  of 
the  Act  beneficial  in  its  effect  upon  the  employment  of  young  women 
in  the  dress-making  trade.  Still,  one  great  defect  in  factory  legis- 
lation remained — the  Workshops  Act  was  entirely  in  the  hands  of 
the  local  authority.  In  1870  this  shortcoming  was  remedied,  and 
henceforward  the  Workshops  Act  was  enforced  by  the  Government 
factory  inspectors.  Four  years  later  in  every  kind  of  textile  factory 
the  number  of  hours  a  day  was  limited  to  ten.  It  was  further  en- 
acted that  no  child  should  be  employed  under  ten,  and  that  no 
young  person  under  thirteen  should  be  employed  full  time  without 
an  educational  certificate.     Although,  up  to  this  time,  attendance  at 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  \\\\ 

school  had  more  or  less  been  enforced  upon  the  half-time  princi] 
between  the  ages  of  eight  and  thirteen,  no  certificate  had  b  i 
quired,  and  in  the  case  of  many  trades — such  as  print-work  -       !ul- 
dren  were  permitted  to  keep  their  half-time  attendances  when  and 

how  they  pleased — an  option  which  frequently  resulted   in   school 
being  systematically  shirked. 

The  Factory  and  Workshops  Act  of  1878,  while  it  repealed  or 
consolidated  upwards  of  a  hundred  pieces  of  different  le  on, 

brought  all  kinds  of  factories,  iron  and  hardware  as  well  as  textile, 
within  the  province  of  the  Act,  but  did  not  extend  to  them  the  ten- 
hours  limit,  the  reason  being  that  the  proportion  of  women  and  chil- 
dren employed  in  these  industries  is  much  smaller  than  in  the  Ci 
of  textile  mills.     Legislation,  however,  seems  scarcely  wanted  to  en- 
force the  ten-hours  rule.     Practically,  custom  has  already  fixed  that 
as  the  period   beyond  which   neither   men,   women,   nor  child' 
should  work.     "When  on  sudden  emergencies — such  as  the  necessity 
for  executing  an  order  before  a  given  time,  or  of  anticipating  a  fall 
in  the  market — empkryers  arrange  with  their  hands  to  prolos 
usual  spell,  they  find  that  the  rate  of  extra  production  is  not  such 
as  to  repay  the   expenditure   of  the  extra  wage.     Ti  over- 

whelming testimony  on  all  hands  to  show  that  the  men  have 
quired  the  habit  of  putting  forth  all  their  energy  within  the  limits 
of  the  ten  hours.  It  is  the  same  with  the  women,  children,  an  ! 
young  persons  engaged  in  bookbinding  and  other  trades  to  which 
special  immunities  are  granted.  The  labor  may  be  continued,  but 
the  spirit  and  care  with  which  it  is  performed  are  relaxed.  Ex- 
hausted nature  refuses  to  respond  to  the  undue  demand.* 

*  It  may  perhaps  be  as  well  succinctly  to  summarize,  for  the  convenience  of 
the  reader,  the  chief  heads  of  the  factory  legislation  now  in  force.  A  factory  i  i 
defined  to  mean  any  premises  in  which  mechanical  power  is  used  in  a  manufac- 
turing process,  or  in  which  certain  trades  such  as  lucifer  match  making,  percus- 
sion caps  and  cartridge  making,  bookbinding,  letterpress  printing,  tobacco  and 
cigar  manufacturing,  are  carried  on.  It  follows  from  the  above  definition  thai 
r  H  corn-mills  and  nearly  all  breweries  and  distilleries  have  now  become  factor] 
The  number  of  protected  persons  employed  in  such  establishments  as  these  —that 
is  to  say,  of  women,  children,  and  young  persons — is  not  large,  and  the  cl 
■;e  of  inspection  as  applied  to  them  will  consist  in  the  additional  protection 
ich  will  be  thereby  given  to  the  people  employed  from  dangerous  mad  inery 
or  from  preventible  dust  and  effluvia  arising  either  from  the  process  of  manu- 
facture itself,  or  from  defective  sanitary  arrangements.  "Fa  "under the 
Act  of  1878  are  classified  "textile"  and  "non-textile."  There  is 
male  in  the  number  of  hours  in  which  women,  young  persons,  and  childn  n  may 
be  employed  in  either  case.  In  textile  factories  it  remains  at  fifty-six  and  a  half 
hours  a  week,  as  fixed  by  the  Factory  Act  of  1874,  while  in  non-b  stile  factories 


150  ENGLAND. 

For  the  full  results  of  factory  legislation  we  shall  yet  have  tc 
wait  some  time.  It  is  impossible  to  make  the  effect  of  a  law  coinci- 
dent with  its  passing.  But  the  work  already  accomplished  by  the 
Factory  Acts  is  immense.  While  they  have  certainly  cured  ah  the 
evils  existing  in  the  first  half  of  the  century,  they  have,  in  addition, 
created  a  strong  public  feeling  in  favor  of  then-  humanizing  agency. 
They  have  been  the  foundation  of  the  Factory  Acts  of  ah  other 
countries,  and  if  it  is  wanted  to  know  what  are  the  evils  which  the 
existence  of  such  measures  prevent,  an  idea  may  be  derived  from 
the  condition  of  the  factories  of  Belgium  and  India.  In  each  of 
these  countries  many  of  the  revelations  contained  in  the  Report 
of  the  Children's  Employments  Commission  (1862),  long  since  hap- 
pily obsolete  in  England,  are  matters  of  daily  experience.  La  the 
pottery  districts  of  the  United  Kingdom,  less  than  fifteen  years  ago, 
11,000  children  and  }Toung  persons  were  employed  under  conditions 
fatal  alike  to  mental  and  bodily  health.  They  commenced  work  in 
childhood — some  between  six  and  seven,  and  others  between  seven 
and  eight,  eight  and  nine,  and  nine  and  ten.  Their  hours  of  labor 
were  from  five  a.  m.  to  six  p.  ml,  but  in  numberless  instances  they  were 
required  to  work  on  till  eight,  nine,  or  ten  p.  ml,  and  this  in  an  atmos- 
phere varying  from  100  to  120  degrees,  and  in  a  few  instances  as 
high  as  148  degrees,  in  rooms,  or  rather  "  stoves,""about  thirteen 
feet  square,  and  from  eight  to  twelve  feet  high.  In  the  winter  these 
children  were  sent  abroad  on  errands,  with  the  mercury  twenty  de- 
grees below  freezing  point,  without  stockings,  shoes,  or  jackets,  and 
with  the  perspiration  streaming  from  then*  foreheads.     As  might 

it  will  continue  sixty  hours  a  week  as  fixed  by  the  Act  of  1867.  The  provisions 
of  the  Act  of  1874,  which  apply  to  the  employment  of  children  and  young  per- 
sons, are  now  extended  to  all  non-textile  factories  and  workshops.  A  child  can- 
not legally  be  employed  in  future  under  any  circumstances  under  ten  years  of 
age.  At  thirteen  a  child  may  be  employed  full  time  provided  that  it  can  pro- 
duce a  certificate  of  having  passed  the  fourth  standard  fixed  by  the  Committee 
of  the  Council  on  Education.  In  the  event  of  a  child  not  being  able  to  produce 
such  a  certificate  it  must  continue  at  school  half  time  till  it  reaches  the  age  of 
fourteen.  The  choice  is  given  under  the  Act  of  1878  to  all  occupiers  of  factories, 
whether  textile  or  non-textile,  to  work  throughout  the  year  either  from  six  to  six 
or  from  seven  to  seven,  as  they  may  select.  The  privilege  of  working  from  eight 
to  eight  is  given  to  a  limited  number  of  trades  and  occupations,  which  do  not 
appear  to  embrace  all  who  enjoyed  it  under  the  old  Act.  The  Secretary  of  State 
has  power  to  give  this  permission  to  a  trade  when  the  necessity  for  it  is  proved, 
but  a  representation  to  him  on  the  subject  must  be  forwarded  through  the  chief 
inspector.  Various  modifications  relating  to  holidays  and  meal-times  are  granted 
to  meet  the  special  emergencies  of  particular  trades.  The  occupier  of  a  factory 
is  bound  to  send  notice  to  the  inspector  should  he  fail  to  be  visited  or  to  receive 
official  notice. 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  151. 

have  been  expected,  numbers  of  them  died  from  consumption, 
asthma,  and  acute  inrlainrnations.  This  condition  of  things  is  ab- 
solutely non-existent  now.  The  children  of  tender  age  are  to  bo 
found  employed  at  this  labor  no  longer.  The  law  has  given  work- 
ers in  these  places  protection  to  life  and  health  generally,  unproved 
ventilation,  and  respite  from  toil  at  regular  intervals,  in,  employ- 
ers have  discovered  that  improved  ventilation  means  economy 
production,  and  that  unless  provision  is  made  for  the  es< 
moisture  from  the  clay  the  articles  are  not  properly  dried.  Def< 
ive  ventilation«there  of  course  still  is,  and  for  some  time  must,  remain. 
Whether  in  the  pottery  districts  or  elsewhere,  the  old  workshops 
were  seldom  constructed  upon  sound  principles,  and  till  these  have 
been  replaced  by  new  workshops  built  upon  an  improved  plan  some 
abuses-must  continue  to  exist.  Meanwhile,  a  vital  reform  has  been 
effected  by  the  construction  in  every  instance  of  the  stove  outside 
the  workshop,  and  the  factory  inspectors  bear  witness  to  the  laud- 
able readiness  with  which  all  the  larger  employers  are  adopting  the 
newest  and  most  effective  improvements. 

In  the  same  way  the  scandals  which  once  disgraced  the  paper 
trade  are  no  longer  to  be  met  with.  We  shall  look  in  vain  now  for 
.  parents  who  have  to  carry  children  of  seven  years  old  on  then  back 
through  the  show,  to  work  sixteen  hours  a  day,  kneeling  down  to 
feed  them  at  the  machine.  The  business  is  at  the  present  moment 
in  the  hands  of  large  employers,  who  have  executed  the  provisions 
of  the  law  with  equal  fidelity  and  promptitude.  The  same  process 
of  improvement  has  been  going  on  in  the  lucifer  match  trade.  Fac- 
tory legislation  has  killed  the  small  manufacturers,  whose  establish- 
ments were  the  hot-beds  of  systematic  abuse.  Thus  one  factory, 
employing  six  men  and  fifteen  boys,  consisted  of  two  small  sheds, 
the  latter  shed  being  about  20  by  11  feet,  with  no  ventilation  what- 
ever. This  place  served  for  both  "  dipping  "  and  drying  room,  as 
well  as  for  mixing  and  heating  the  sulphur  and  the  phosphorus 
composition.  The  other  shed,  also  without  ventilation,  was  about 
30  by  10  feet.  Here  all  the  remaining  processes  were  carried  on, 
the  number  of  processes  varying  altogether  from  about  ten  to  twenty. 
Hither  children  brought  their  meals,  and  here  they  ate  them,  suiting 
the  time  of  eating  to  their  work.  While  in  London  there  were,  ten 
years  ago,  between  thirty  or  forty  match  manufactories  of  this  kind, 
there  are  probably  at  the  present  moment  not  more  than  hall'  a 
dozen  on  a  small  scale  and  even  these  are  well  conducted.  The 
large  manufacturers  being  able  to  produce  the  article  more  cheaply, 
the  smaller  employers  have  inevitably  gone  to  the  wall. 


152  ENGLAND. 

In  the  brick-making  trade  there  were,  for  some  time  after  the 
above  abuses  had  been  remedied,  from  20,000  to  30,000  children 
employed  between  the  ages  of  three  and  four  and  sixteen  and  seven- 
teen. George  Smith,  of  Coalville,  has  said  of  himseK  that  at  the  age 
of  nine  he  was  employed  in  continually  carrying  about  forty  pounds 
of  clay  upon  his  head  from  the  clay  heap  to  the  table  on  which  the 
bricks  were  made.  This  work  had  to  be  performed,  almost  without 
a  break,  for  thirteen  hours  daily.  One  night,  after  his  customary 
day's  work,  he  was  compelled  to  carry  1,200  nine-inch  bricks  from 
the  maker  to  the  floors  on  which  they  harden.  The  'distance  thus 
walked  by  the  child  was  quite  fourteen  miles,  seven  of  which  were 
travelled  with  eleven  pounds'  weight  of  clay  in  his  arms,  and  for  this 
labor  he  received  sixpence.  It  is  only  quite  recently  that  brickyards 
have  been  brought  within  the  operation  of  the  Factory  Acts.  Until 
that  was  done  the  factory  inspectors  had  no  power  of  enforcing  the 
"Workshops  Act,  and  many  brickyard  proprietors  purposely  subjected 
themselves  to  the  operation  of  the  latter  measure,  by  keeping  the 
number  of  hands  employed  under  fifty.  At  the  present  day  the  em- 
ployment of  girls  under  sixteen  is  absolutely  forbidden  in  brickyards: 
in  point  of  fact,  very  few  girls  are  employed  in  these  places  at  all; 
and  pending  the  settlement  of  the  question,  whether  the  employ- 
ment should  not  be  forbidden,  to  all  women  also,  the  number  of 
women  thus  occupied  is  decreasing  daily. 

There  is  one  gross  blot  upon  the  social  condition  of  industrial 
England  which  has  yet  to  be  entirely  removed.  It  has  been  esti- 
mated that  there  are  about  22,000  men,  22,000  women,  and  72,000 
children  floating  up  and  down  the  country  on  its  rivers  and  canals. 
It  also  appears  that  some  26,000  of  the  11,000  men  and  women  are 
living  in  an  unmarried  state,  and  that  about  10,000  of  the  72,000 
children  are  illegitimate.*  Although  these  barges,  for  sanitary  pur- 
poses, are  by  the  Public  Health  Act  considered  houses,  it  is  quite 
impracticable  to  exercise  due  supervision  over  such  a  floating  and 
fleeting  population,  and  thus  when  disease  is  on  board,  which  is 
frequently  the  case,  barges  act  as  centers  whence  infectious  mala- 
dies are  propagated  throughout  the  country. 

In  the  condition  of  workers  in  shops  there  is  still  room  for  con- 
siderable improvement.  Here  the  factory  inspectors  have  great 
obstacles  to  encounter,  and  are  called  upon  to  exercise  much  judg- 
ment. It  is  exceedingly  hard  to  prove,  without  a  degree  of  inquisi- 
torial interference  which  would  enlist  public  sympathy  on  behalf  of 

*  Factory  Keports  for  the  half-year  ending  October  31,  1875,  page  128. 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  I.-', 

the  breakers  of  the  law,  that  the  law  has  been  infringed.  Magis- 
trates have  a  strong  objection  to  interfering  with  people  who  un- 
engaged in  the  making  of  a  livelihood.  The  signal  success  of  the 
Factory  Acts  is  in  a  great  degree  due  to  the  discretion  with  which 

they  have  been  administered.  It  is  because  the  inspectors  he 
been  uniformly  willing  to  hear  both  sides,  to  act  as  arbitrators  be- 
tAveen  employers  and  employed,  before  proceeding  summarily  I  > 
arraign  the  former,  that  they  have  produced  amongst  the  class  of 
employers  generally  a  disposition  to  execute  and  assist  the  A. 
The  Saturday  half-holiday,  prescribed  by  the  law,  lias  in  some  in- 
stances given  rise  to  considerable  practical  difficulty.  The  empli  tyer, 
when  it  has  been  pointed  out  to  him  that  the  law  requires  him  to 
give  all  the  young  women  in  his  establishment  the  benefit  of  the 
Saturday  half-holiday,  has  replied  that  this  would  inevitably  compel 
him  to  reduce  the  number  of  his  hands.  In  these  cases  the  inspec- 
tors have  sometimes  been  able  to  recommend  a  compromise.  The 
Saturday  half-holiday  has  been  taken  alternately  by  the  different 
employes,  with  entire  satisfaction  to  all  concerned. 

The  consideration  of  the  working  of  the  Education  Acts  of  1870 
and  1876  must  not  be  separated  from  the  working  of  the  Factory 
Acts.  Both  have  been  indispensable  agencies  in  the  great  task  of 
reforming  the  condition  of  the  manufacturing  districts;  arid  while 
the  number  of  instances  in  which  they  are  systematically  infringed 
is  shown  by  the  report  of  the  inspectors  to  be  annually  diminisbi 
the  feeling  against  those  guilty  of  such  infractions  is  more  pro- 
nounced. The  law  as  it  now  stands  prohibits  and  penalizes  the 
employment  of  all  children  under  ten  years  of  age,  and  the  employ- 
ment of  children  as  half-timers  of  less  than  thirteen,  and  who  have 
not  passed  in  the  fourth  standard — who  cannot,  in  other  wordSj  read 
and  write,  compose  a  simple  essay  or  letter  on  a  familial-  subject, 
who  have  not  mastered  the  chief  rudimentary  facts  of  the  history 
of  their  country,  and  the  geography  of  the  world,  as  will  as  the  art 
of  keeping  plain  accounts.  How  satisfactorily  this  system  works 
may  be  judged  from  the  reports  of  the  school  inspectors.  "  The 
Factory  Act  of  1874,"  writes  one  of  the  inspectors  in  his  report  to 
the  Education  Office  of  1876,  "contains  a  clause  which  is  directly 
educational,  and  is  likely  to  work  important  results.  Hitherto  every 
child  might,  at  the  age  of  thirteen,  cease  attending  school,  and  com- 
mence working  full  time  at  the  mill,  without  any  question  b(  i 
asked  about  the  state  of  his  education,  and,  accordingly,  thousands 
of  children  have  passed  through  their  half-time  career  without 
higher  than  Standard  I.  or  II.,  or  even  without  passing  any  atari  lard." 


154  ENGLAND. 

It  is  further  the  opinion  of  many  -who  are  entitled  in  such  a  matter 
to  be  considered  experts,  that  the  wits  of  children  working  half-time 
are  sharpened,  and  that  they  can  compete  not  unsuccessfully  with 
the  whole-timers.  The  reason  probably  is  that  the  half-timer  is 
compelled  to  be  regular  in  attendance,  and  it  thus  often  happens 
that  a  child  who  spends  not  less  than  thirteen  or  fourteen  hours  a 
week  aU  the  year  round  at  school,  derives  greater  benefit  than  the 
child  who  is  at  school  twenty-five  hours  a  week  with  indifferent  reg- 
ularity. Add  to  this  that  the  influence  of  the  school  teaching  con- 
tinues when  the  teaching  itself  is  not  actually  in  progress,  and  that 
the  half-timer  is  unceasingly  exercising  his  receptive  powers  when 
he  is  at  work  in  the  factory. 

Although  the  Factory  Acts  have  froin  the  first  contained  edu- 
cational clauses,  they  have  never  primarily  had  an  educational  pur- 
pose. It  was  their  object  to  prevent  the  child  working  before  a 
certain  age,  and  as  the  best  of  all  proofs  that  he  was  not  at  work 
was  the  fact  that  he  was  at  school,  school  attendances  were  required 
by  the  law.  Thus,  from  one  point  of  view,  the  provisions  of  the  Edu- 
cation Acts  of  1870  and  of  1876  may  be  regarded  as  supplementing 
the  educational  clauses  of  the  Factory  Acts.  The  School  Boards 
can  do  any  thing  which  is  not  contrary  to  the  Factory  Acts;  they 
may  exceed  the  letter  of  those  laws,  but  they  cannot  violate  their 
spirit;  they  may  go  beyond  them,  but  they  must  not  fall  short  of 
them.  Where  the  Factory  Act  prescribes  a  certain  standard,  the 
School  Board  may  raise  that  standard,  but  cannot  reduce  it.  Thus, 
the  School  Boards  can  override  the  labor  laws,  but  only  on  con- 
dition that  their  edicts  go  farther  in  the  direction  which  the  labor 
laws  contemplate.  Considerable  discretion  in  industrial  matters  is 
thus  reposed  in  the  School  Boards;  they  frequently  refuse  to  grant 
certificates  to  half-timers,  unless  they  are  satisfied  that  the  parents 
are  in  a  condition  to  render  the  child's  labor  necessary. 

It  is  clear,  however,  that  on  the  educational  side  of  the  Fac- 
tory Acts  certain  reforms  are  still  wanted.  In  the  first  place,  it 
is  desirable  that  permission  to  begin  to  work  at  the  age  of  ten 
should  be  conditional  on  a  certain  educational  standard  having 
been  reached.  This  condition  is  imposed  by  some  School  Board 
authorities,  but  it  is  very  far  from  being  universal.  Secondly,  ex- 
cept in  cases  in  which  factories  and  schools  are  far  apart,  only  one 
form  of  half-time  attendance  should  be  allowed  to  count,  namely, 
attendance  on  the  morning  or  afternoon  of  every  day.  The  obvious 
disadvantage  of  the  alternate,  or  whole-day  system,  is  that  when  they 
are  not  at  school  children  are  employed  for  a  length  of  time  entirely 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  If,.-, 

unsuited  to  their  strength  and  for  which  no  c>  ition  is  forth- 

coming  in  the  comparative  physical  vest  of  an  entire  day's  schooling. 

There  is  a  third  and  more  serious  abuse  ^i  which  the  possibility 

will  always  remain  until  some  considerable  alteration  has  been  ma 
in  the  existing  law.  There  are  many  parts  of  England,  e  pecially 
the  midland  counties,  in  which  agricultural  and  manufacturing 
districts  mutually  overlap.  Parents  living  in  such  neighborhoods 
as  these  are  not  slow  to  take  advantage  of  the  difference  between 
the  educational  legislation  of  manufacturing  and  of  agricultu 
England.  So  long  as  this  difference  is  not  removed  there  will  be 
a  natural  temptation  to  parents  to  send  children  at  the  age  of  ten 
yeax*s  to  work  on  farms  and  in  the  fields,  having,  of  course,  satisfied 
the  modest  requirements  of  the  educational  standard  fixed  in  the 
case  of  rural  labor.  At  the  end  of  three  or  four  years  the  child 
will  be  of  an  age  which  qualifies  him  to  obtain  the  higher  wages 
paid  in  manufacturing  labor,  but  as  his  school  days  have  come  pre- 
maturely to  an  end  he  will  not  have  reached  the  educational  stand- 
ard prescribed  by  the  Factory  Acts.  By  bringing  a  child  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Agricultural  Children's  Act  in  the  first  in- 
stance, and  of  the  Factory  Act  in  the  second,  the  parents  have 
satisfied  the  letter  of  both  laws,  while  violating  the  general  purpose 
of  each.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  this  is  to  be  obviated,  unless 
complete  uniformity  between  our  educational  statutes  in  town  and 
country  is  established. 

The  truck  system  is  another  of  the  abuses  which  legislation  has 
aimed  at  removing,  for  whose  removal  the  legislative  machinery 
exists,  but  which,  in  consequence  of  the  difficulty  of  putting  that 
machinery  into  force,  lingers  on  in  some  few  districts.  It  may  1  m  • 
justly  urged  that  the  expense  of  prosecution  under  the  Truck  Act 
should  not  be  borne  by  the  workman,  who  would  be  sure  to  lose  his 
employment,  while  the  penalties  for  breaches  of  the  Truck  Act  by 
the  masters  are  too  small  to  counterbalance  the  influence  of  consid- 
erable profits.  Truck  is  a  mischief  of  long  standing,  and  is  in  its 
origin  contemporary  with  the  growth  of  the  staple  manufactures  of 
the  country.  Some  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  lucrativeness  of  the 
system  to  those  who  are,  or  were,  its  promoters  from  the  fact  that 
at  the  branch  establishment  of  a  certain  company  in  "Wales  the  entire 
wages  earned  amounted  to  about  £200,000;  that  of  this  £130,000  in 
round  numbers  was  paid  before  pay-day  in  advance,  of  which  £62,000 
was  taken  to  the  shops,  that  the  total  purchases  of  the  shops  was 
£70,000  for  the  year,  and  the  sales  realized  £84,000,  thus  leaving  a 
gross  balance  of  £14,000. 


156  ENGLAND. 

It  would  be,  perhaps,  safer  to  say  that  truck  is  steadily  dying,  than 
that  it  is  actually  dead.  There  are  collieries  of  the  midland  districts 
in  which  what  is  practically  truck,  though  the  name  is  not  used,  is 
far  from  unknown.  When  stoppages  of  wages  are  made  for  com- 
pulsory club  and  school  payments,  which  are  in  the  hands  of  the 
proprietors,  and  out  of  which  the  proprietors  sometimes  make  a 
profit;  when  deductions  are  made  from  wages  if  children  fail  to  at- 
tend church  or  chapel  schools  on  Sunday,  it  is  impossible  to  speak 
of  truck  as  entirely  non-existent.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  probable 
that  flagrant  violations  of  the  Truck  Act  are  chiefly  confined  to  the 

|  nail  trade.  The  petty  nail  masters,  in  many  instances,  keep  provi- 
sion  and  other  shops,  at  which  then-  hands  are  expected  to  trade; 
the  wives  get  into  debt  at  these  establishments,  and  the  debt  is 
Hquidated  by  the  stoppage  of  a  certain  portion  of  the  weekly  wage. 
Instances,  moreover,  could  be  mentioned  in  which  employers  still 

.  give  orders  on  these  shops  in  lieu  of  wages.  In  an  area  of  some 
fifteen  or  twenty  miles  round  Dudley  in  Staffordshire  about  25,000 
hands  are  employed,  and,  speaking  roughly,  about  14,000  are 
trucked.  The  average  wages  for  a  nailer  making  common  nails, 
working  fourteen  hours  a  day,  would  be  9s.  to  10s.  a  week,  and 
where  there  is  a  wife  and  children  to  help  him  12s.  a  week  may  be 
earned.  These  people  live  in  hovels,  and  are  perpetually  in  dis- 
tress. They  complain  to  this  day  that  they  have  to  pay  5d.  for  soap 
which  could  be  got  elsewhere  for  3d.,  and  lOd.  for  bacon  which,  of 
better  quality,  elsewhere  costs  7d.  Unable  to  get  cash,  these  men 
resell  at  a  loss  articles  purchased  at  the  "fogger's"  shop.  They 
have  been  known  to  pay  rent  by  reselling  flour  to  their  landlord. 
The  state  of  things  disclosed  by  truck  in  the  watch-making  trade  is 
not  less  painful.  One  of  those  employed  in  this  industry  remarks, 
"  If  men  did  not  take  watches  from  their  employer  they  would  get 
no  work.  He  himself  had  been  in  the  habit  of  taking  £5  watches 
and  getting  £2  10s.  for  them."     Another  workman  says,  "I  have 

had  three  watches  from .     He  charged  me  £6  10s.  for  the 

first — a  gold  Geneva  watch.     I  kept  it  for  some  time,  and  then  I 
pledged  it  for  £1  10s.,  and  I  sold  the  pawn-ticket  for  10s." 

There  are  other  specific  abuses  which,  the  beneficent  operation 
of  Factory  Acts  and  the  vigilant  system  of  factory  inspection  not- 
withstanding, have  yet  to  be  rooted  out.  In  the  case  of  white-lead 
manufacture,  many  improvements  have  recently  been  adopted  by 
which  the  illness  and  disease  of  those  engaged  in  it  have  been  im- 
mensely reduced.  Such  a  reform  is  the  casting  the  lead  into  frames, 
to  facilitate  carbonization  by  machinery  instead  of  by  hand,  and  the 


/ 


THE    WORKING    CL 

washing  and  brushing  of  the  pots  in  winch  Ihe  load  is  formed  l>v 
machinery.  The  means  have  yet  to  be  devised  to  prevent  the  in- 
halation of  the  white-lead  d\ist  by  the  workers.  Her.',  as  elsewhere, 
incalculable  mischief  is  done  by  the  absence  of  anj  definite  and  uni- 
versally enforced  rules.  It  is  practically  too  often  left  to  the  discre- 
tion of  the  manufacturer  whether  the  sanitary  condition  of  factories 
is  good  or  bad.  In  some  establishments  gloves  and  respirators,  caps 
and  dresses  for  women,  canvas  browsers  and  boots  for  the  men  are 
provided — in  others  there  is  nothing  of  the  sort. 

In  a  report  dated  October,  1ST"),  Mr.  Redgrave  makes  it  dear 
that  there  are  other  industries  almost  as  dangerous  in  their  condi- 
tions, and  disastrous  in  their  results,  as  white-lead  works,  e  ipecially 
the  silvering  of  looking-glasses,  and  the  cutting  and  pn  paring  of 
mill-stones.  He  writes:  "In  a  shop  where  mill-stones  are  prepared 
are  to  be  seen  men  in  every  stage  of  siiffering.  The  robust  young 
countryman,  attracted  by  good  wages,  thinking  probably  that  he 
may  be  able  to  weather  the  storm;  then  he  who  was  robusi  hut  is 
now  pale,  and  harassed  by  cough;  then  through  the  various  phaa 
up  to  the  shrunken  hectic  invalid,  whose  frail  body  is  actually 
wrenched  by  that  cruel  cough,  and  as  to  whom  we  are  told,  'Oh, 
he  won't  last  above  two  months.'"  Mr.  Redgrave's  practical  con- 
clusion is  that  Parliament  will  not  have  discharged  its  full  dul  v  until 
it  has  insisted  upon  the  universal  use  in  these  establishments  of 
gloves,  resrrirators,  clothes,  caps,  and  boots. 

Factory  legislation,  as  we  have  already  seen  in  the  case  of  shops, 
if  it  is  to  be  either  just  or  effective  in  its  working,  must  be  conducted 
upon  elastic  principles.  It  is  impossible  to  apply  the  same  restric- 
tions to  all  kinds  of  industries,  and  it  is  therefore  necessary  to  g 
the  inspectors  a  considerable  amount  of  discretion  in  the  making  of 
recommendations  which  are  to  carry  with  them  the  force  of  law. 
Thus,  one  of  the  inspectors,  Mr.  Baker,  says  that  in  the  ease  of 
woolen  mills  where  cloth  is  manufaetured  or  finished,  several  of  : 
processes  can  only  be  earned  on  in  daylight,  and  therefore,  in  the 
winter  months,  when  the  days  are  very  short,  and  all  such  work  is 
done  by  piece,  he  has  given  permission  that  the  meal-hours  of  such 
workers  shall  not  be  limited  to  the  general  meal-honrs  of  the  rest  of 
the  workers.  He  has  further  permitted  the  same  alteration  in  a 
few  other  works,  with  satisfaction  to  both  masters  and  workers. 
Again,  at  a  meeting  of  the  sub-inspectors  of  Birmingham  and  the 
surrounding  country,  it  was  decided  (1870)  by  a  majority  of  six  to 
one,  that  there  were  no  industries  to  which  the  clause  of  the  Fac- 
tory Extension  Act  of  1867,  making  from  six  to  six  the  compu 


158  ENGLAND. 

working  hours  during  the  summer,  and  from  seven  to  seven  the 
optional  working  hours  during  the  whiter,  should  he  applied;  hut 
that  whether  from  six  to  six  or  seven  to  seven  should  be  left  to  the 
choice  of  the  workers  all  the  year  through.  The  Manchester  sub- 
inspectors  were  also  of  opinion  that  in  the  case  of  the  various  de- 
partments of  the  clothes  manufactories  the  option  should  be  given 
of  working  from  eight  to  eight.  These  recommendations  of  the 
officers  of  the  law  have  since  become  part  of  the  law  itself. 

Speaking  generally  of  the  practical  results,  and  the  actual  work- 
ing of  the  Factory  Laws  at  the  present  moment,  it  may  be  said  that 
the  latest  reports  of  the  inspectors  point  conclusively  to  two  things: 
first,  it  is  plain  that  the  portion  of  the  law  which  provides  for  the 
fencing  of  machinery,  as  a  protection  to  the  workers,  requires  to  be 
more  precisely  worded  and  more  stringently  and  uniformly  enforced. 
Secondly,  the  reports  of  the  inspectors  of  factories  dated  October, 
1877,  prove  that  the  law  restricting  the  hours  of  employment  of 
women  in  factories  works  well,  that  it  has  recommended  itself  both 
to  employers  and  employed,  and  that  none  of  the  evils  or  inconven- 
iences or  injustices  which  were  anticipated  as  its  possible  results  by 
Mr.  Fawcett,  and  other  competent  critics,  have  actually  arisen.  "  I 
have  found,"  writes  Mr.  Redgrave,  "  the  limitations  imposed  upon 
the  hours  of  work  by  women  most  cordially  approved,  and  the 
greatest  anxiety,  and  positive  alarm,  entertained  at  the  prospect 
of  any  relaxation  which  would  expose  them  to  the  irregular  and 
uncertain  hours  of  work  that  prevailed  prior  to  the  passing  of  the 
Factory  Act  of  1867."  Mr.  Redgrave  quotes  many  testimonies  of 
working  women  in  support  and  illustration  of  this  view.  "I  de- 
cidedly prefer,"  says  one,  "  to  work  the  hours  fixed  by  the  Factory 
Acts.  I  never  had  any  illness  since  the  Factory  Act  came  into 
operation."  "I  certainly  do  not  wish,"  says  another,  "to  see  the 
Factory  Act  repealed,  and  permission  given  to  women  to  work 
later."  "  The  Factory  Act,"  says  a  third.,  "  is  regarded  as  a  great 
boon  by  all  the  women  that  I  know  in  the  trade.  I  find  I  can  earn 
more  money  under  the  Factory  Act  than  when  we  had  no  regula- 
tions." It  is  thus  that  Mr.  Redgrave  sums  up  the  general  moral 
results  of  this  legislation : — 

"  That  the  Factory  Acts  have  a  direct  tendency  to  encourage 
morality  and  steady  behavior  I  can  establish  very  clearly.  More 
than  once  letters  have  reached  me  from  parents  of  young  girls  em- 
ployed in  factories,  complaining  that  they  did  not  reach  home  till 
long  after  the  legal  time  for  closing.  On  tracing  these  complaints 
to  their  foundation  the  fault  was  found  to  rest  with  the  girls,  and 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  l.V.) 

not  with  the  employers.     To  parents  who  exercise  a  watchful  care 
over  their  children  the  factory  regulations,  it  is  obvious,  must  be  of 

great  value,  as  they  cannot  be  deceived  by  the  excuse  that  such  chil- 
dren have  been  kept  late  at  work. 

"  The  argument  that  the  tendency  of  the  Factory  Acts  is  to  pi 
an  artificial  restriction  on  the  employment  of  women,  and  thus  to 
depreciate  the  market  value  of  their  labor,  is  refuted  on  every  hand 
by  practical  experience  in  the  textde  manufactories.  Here  the  re- 
strictions upon  women's  work  are  the  most  stringent;  and  vet  the 
tendency  for  a  long  series  of  years  has  been  the  opposite,  the  propor- 
tion of  women  employed  has  steadily  increased.  The  same  observa- 
tion applies  to  many  of  the  trades  and  occupations  carried  on  in 
London.  As  for  the  rate  of  wages  paid,  there  is  not  an  employer 
in  the  metropolis  who  will  hesitate  to  acknowledge  that  there  has 
been  during  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years  a  very  substantial  and 
important  advance  in  the  remuneration  given  to  women  for  their 
work." 

The  social  and  moral  condition  of  our  manufacturing  classes, 
and  the  physical  deterioration  of  factory  workers,  are  facts  as  lam- 
entable as  they  are  indisputable.  Physical  deterioration  must  be 
attributed  quite  as  much  to  the  vicious  habits  of  parents,  to  the 
intemperance  which  transmits  enfeebled  constitutions  to  the  next 
generation,  as  to  the  actual  employment  in  factories.  Thus,  while 
it  is  true  that  "  the  physical  strength  and  appearance  suffer  much  in 
factories  from  confined,  heated  atmospheres,  loaded  with  fine  cotton 
fibers,  fine  flinty  sand,  and  cutaneous  exhalations;  the  number  of 
gaslights,  each  light  destroying  oxygen  equal  to  one  man;  and  tran- 
sitions from  the  mills  and  their  temperatures  to  their  dwellings," 
there  is  no  doubt  that  as  serious  injury  is  done  by  the  injudicious 
dieting  of  infants,  who  instead  of  being  fed  from  the  breast  of  their 
mothers  are  nurtured  on  pap,  made  of  bread  and  water,  and  a 
little  later  on  coffee  and  tea.  It  is  bad  enough  that,  as  competent 
medical  authorities  tell  us,  the  skin  should  secrete  all  the  noxious 
qualities  of  an  Indian  climate,  but  it  is  even  worse  to  hear  "the  off- 
spring are  reared  with  the  bottle,  and  drugged  by  the  mother.  N 1 1 
doubt  factory  physique  is  not  good,  but  it  is  made  worse  by  factory 
associations  of  vice  and  iniquity." 

The  culminating  point  of  social  scandal  is  probably  reached  in 
the  Black  Country.     As  a  consequence  of  a  state  of  things  under 
which  we  read  of  publicans  sallying  forth  from  the  Black  Country 
to  a  township  not  far  distant  "  to  court  and  corrupt  the  girls  of  I 
place,"  it  is  not  surprising  to  hear  that  bastardy  is  enormously  prev- 


1G0  ENGLAND. 

aleiit.  The  following  are  a  few  illustrations  of  tlie  current  abomi- 
nations of  the  neighborhood..  Nine  paoplo  of  both  sexes  and  of  all 
ages  have  only  two  bedrooms.  A  man  and  his  wife,  with  three 
lodgers — two  msn  and  the  other  a  woman  within  two  months  of 
her  expected  confinement — have  two  bedrooms.  Working  men  on 
leaving  the  public-house  have  exchanged  wives  on  the  road  home, ! 
the  bargain  has  been  adhered  to,  and  the  neighbors  have  not  been 
shocked  by  the  circumstance.*  These  are  features  in  the  contem- 
jiorary  life  of  the  Black  Country  which  clearly  indicate  a  state  of 
things  that  calls  for  further  legislative  interference  in  such  matters 
as  women's  and  children's  labor,  overcrowding  of  houses,  and  the 
arrangements  of  houses.  The  State  has  already  decided  that  «uch 
matters  come  within  its  due  province,  while  they  obviously  belong 
to  a  category  in  which  legislative  machinery  has  been  found  by  ex- 
perience beneficent  and  effective.  Every  improvement  in  the  Black 
Country  during  the  last  forty  years,  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Baker,  "  has 
been  either  originated  or  at  least  fostered  and  helped  forward  by 
the  law — e.  g.,  the  repeal  of  the  old  Poor  Law,  the  suppression  of 
bull-baiting,  of  women's  work  in  coal-pits,  the  partial  abolition  of 
the  truck  system.  If  under  a  revised  or  new  law  a  man  finds  he 
cannot  screw  as  much  out  of  his  wife's  and  children's  work,  he  will 
be  compelled  to  work  on  Monday  and  Tuesday  instead  of  going  out 
to  amuse  himself.  Doubtless  the  wives  and  mothers  among  nailers 
will  recover  strength  from  having  their  hours  of  labor  curtailed,  and 
be  able  to  keep  house  and  nourish  their  babies.  In  short,  English 
homes  and  English  families  might  again  become  the  rule  instead,  of 
the  exception." 

Analogous  improvements  to  those  accomplished  in  manufactur- 
ing England  have  also  been  effected  by  legislation  in  mining  En- 
gland. By  successive  measures  of  reform  which  have  become  law 
since  1850,  it  has  been  provided  that  each  colliery  should  have  a 
certified  manager,  who,  with  the  owner  and  agent,  is  responsible  for 
the  due  observance  at  the  pit  of  the  regulations  prescribed  by  law. 
Government  inspectors  have  been  empowered  to  visit  the  mines 
and  report  upon  their  condition;  the  working  hours  of  boys,  and  of 
women  and  girls,  have  been  restricted;  the  employment  of  the  latter 
underground  has  been  absolutely  prohibited,  and,  with  certain  lim- 
ited exemptions,  the  double  shaft  made  compulsory.  The  compul- 
sory appointment  of  a  certificated  master  was  a  reform  of  much 
importance.     That  official  now  passes  an  examination,  which,  though 

*  Factory  Eeports  for  the  half-year  ending  October  31,  1875,  pages  120  et  seq. 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  1C1 

it  varies  materially  in  different  districts,  is  always  thoroughly  effect- 
ive. Sometimes  the  examiners  base  their  decisions  on  the  candi- 
date's qualifications  as  a  mining  engineer;  sometimes  on  his  general 

intelligence  and  education;  in  other  cases,  on  the  aim  mi  it  ol  his 
experience  in  coal-mines.  The  system  of  inspection  is  an  exceed- 
ingly important  one,  though  it  is  not  universally,  and,  indeed,  very 

rarely,  carried  to  the  extreme  point  originally  contemplated  by  the 
Act.  Existing  legislation,  however,  has  about  it  an  indefiniteness 
which  it  is  most  desirable  should  be  remedied,  and  the  fact  that 
different  ''readings"  of  the  Act  are  in  vogue  in  the  same  localities 
is  a  suggestive  commentary  on  the  need  of  revision. 

Once  we  have  made  our  acquaintance  with  the  mining  popula- 
tion of  England,  wre  shall  find  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  many  con- 
trasts and  startling  varieties.  The  conditions  under  which  the  pit- 
men work  are  far  from  uniform,  their  scale  of  pay  is  diverse,  their 
condition,  tastes,  and  character  vary  as  much  as  do  the  localities  and 
the  circumstances  of  their  labor.  The  Welsh  miner  is  unlike  the 
Staffordshire  pitman,  while  Derbyshire,  Yorkshire,  and  Lancashire 
each  has  its  peculiar  type  of  subterranean  toiler — the  Lancashire  mi- 
ner being  for  the  most  part  a  keen  politician,  and  the  Yorkshire 
miner  a  keen  sportsman.  Going  northwards,  we  shall  encounti  r 
tribes  of  men  ecpially  distinct  in  Northumberland  and  Durham, 
while,  if  we  were  to  cross  the  border,  and  to  make  our  way  into 
Scotland,  wTe  should  be  in  another  world  of  fresh  experiences.  Gen- 
erally it  may  be  said  that  the  miners  of  Northumberland  and  Dur- 
ham are  the  best  specimens  of  their  class,  the  most  intelligent,  the 
most  enlightened,  humane,  thrifty,  and  devout.  In  Northumberland 
there  will  be  found  a  greater  purity  of  stock,  in  Durham  there  is 
to  be  seen  a  larger  admixture  of  foreign  blood.  The  one  county  is 
aboriginal  and  exclusive;  the  other,  though  it  adjoins  it,  is  cosmo- 
politan and  comprehensive.  From  the  south,  east,  and  west  of 
England,  from  Scotland,  and  from  Ireland,  and  even  from  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe,  the  great  army  of  Durham  miners  is  perpetually 
being  reinforced.  In  Northumberland,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is 
to  be  seen  no  such  continuous  and  voluminous  stream  of  immi- 
grants. Yet,  though  these  facts  cannot  fail  to  have  made  them- 
selves felt  upon  the  ways  of  life  and  thoughts  of  the  miners  in  the 
two  counties,  there  are  many  resemblances  to  be  observed  between 
them.  Both  in  Durham  and  Northumberland — as  for  the  matter  of 
that,  in  other  counties  where  mining  is  carried  on — the  external 
appearance  of  the  mining  settlement  does  not  greatly  differ.  Eea  . 
as  elsewhere,  there  is  the  same  incrustation  of  coal-dust  upon  I 
11 


162  ENGLAND. 

stunted  vegetation — sure  sign  of  the  contiguity  of  a  battle-ground 
on  which  man  is  contending  against  nature ;  the  same  long,  straight, 
parallel  rows  of  one-storied  houses,  the  dwellings  for  the  most  part 
studiously  neat  within,  and  the  gardens  well  and  tastefully  deco- 
rated without,  for  scrupulous  tidiness  seems  a  general  characteristic 
of  the  miners  of  England.  As  a  rule,  too,  the  pitmen  in  all  parts 
keep  themselves  distinct  from  the  rest  of  the  population,  a  fact 
which  is  partly  to  be  attributed  to  the  distance  of  many  colliery 
colonies  from  towns.  Even  where  they  are  in  the  immediate  sub- 
urb of  a  considerable  center  of  industry,  the  miners  show  little 
disposition  to  amalgamate  with  the  rest  of  the  population. 

It  is  a  hard  and  perilous  life,  though  science  and  humanity  have 
done  not  a  little  to  mitigate  its  lot.  If  the  average  acje  of  the  miner 
is  considerably  less  than  that  of  the  worker  in  textile  factories,  it  is 
not  so  much  because  he  is  the  peculiar  victim  of  fatal  diseases  as 
\  because  he  is,  in  a  special  degree,  exposed  to  calamitous  accidents. 
On  the  contrary,  although  the  average  life  of  the  miner,  which  may 
be  generally  computed  at  thirty  years,  is  considerably  shorter  than 
that  of  the  factory  worker,  which  may  perhaps  be  estimated  at  thirty- 
eight  and  forty,  which,  again,  is  ten  years  less  than  that  of  the  pro- 
fessional man,  he  is  a  prey  to  comparatively  few  diseases.  Nor  do 
asthma,  bronchitis,  and  other  forms  of  zymotic  malady  prevail 
among  his  class  to  any  thing  like  the  same  extent  that  they  do 
among  the  factory  workers.  If  the  work  itself  is  exhausting,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  not  only  is  it  not  continuous  throughout 
the  week,  never  engaging  more  than  eleven  days  out  of  fourteen, 
frequently  not  more  than  eight,  and  in  bad  times  not  more  than  six, 
but  that  the  domestic  life  is  marked  by  much  healthiness  and  com- 
fort. In  the  large  collieries  of  Durham  and  Northumberland,  the 
owners  provide  cottages  for  the  men  over  and  above  their  regular 
wages,  to  each  of  which  a  little  garden  is  attached,  wherein  is  a  pig- 
sty. The  pigs  are  the  objects  of  friendly  rivalry  and  competition 
amongst  then  proprietors,  who  sometimes  parade  them  on  holidays 
and  in  leisure  hours  down  the  streets  of  the  little  colony.  Again, 
amongst  the  miners,  it  is-  a  point  of  honor  as  well  as  of  duty  for  the 
wife — who  very  seldom,  unless  in  the  neighborhood  of  big  towns, 
goes  out  to  work — to  look  after  the  house  and  to  keep  it  wholesome 
and  comfortable.  The  colliery  districts,  too,  are  well  supplied  with 
medical  men,  while  in  many  cases  the  infantile  diseases,  which  were 
caused  by  want  of  milk,  have  been  extirpated  by  the  institution  of 
dairies  established  by  the  men  themselves,  and  in  a  few  instances 
kept  by  the  foreman  or  manager  of  the  mine. 


THE    WORKING    CI   ' 

It  is  also  no  small  thing  thai  these  strenuous  w<    '         ihould  be 
as  richly  supplied  as  they  are  with  the  means  of  healthfully  absorb- 
ing recreation  and  amusement.     It  is  a  mistake  I  i 
miner,  the  whole  of  whose  affections  are  centered  on  bis  I 

who  feasts  on  champagne  and  spring  chicken,  while  his  wife  and 
children  starve,  is  a  representative  specimen  of  his  order;  a  i  a  m 
ter  of  fact,  the  Durham  and  Northumberland  pitman  is  frequi  ml\  a 
teetotaler,  and  has  no  more  favorite  place  of  occupation  for  his  leis- 
ure hours  than  the  reading-room  or  the  mechanics'  institute,  which 
is  sure  to  exist  in  every  mining  district.  The  minim;  youth  are  also 
given  to  athletic  games,  and  are  often  good  cricketers  and  quoit 
players.  Nor  do  they  organize  brass  bands  unsuccessfully,  and 
often  exhibit  very  considerable  taste  and  skill  in  music.  The  hu- 
manizing influences  of  religion,  science  and  literature  have  been 
signally  displayed  amongst  the  mining  population.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  discover  a  more  Grod-fearing  race  of  men  than  the 
miners  of  the  north,  and  bishops  and  clergy  of  the  Establisl 
Church  have  borne  striking  testimony  to  the  elevating  and  purify- 
ing effect  of  the  religious  tenets  of  that  Primitive  Methodism  which 
is  the  spiritual  faith  of  hundreds  of  "flic  colliers  of  Northumberland 
and  Durham.  As  for  secular  culture,  they  arc  earn  isi  politicians, 
and  keen  newspaper  readers.  Here  one  of  the  advantages  of  union- 
ism may  be  seen.  While  part  of  the  action  of  the  unions  has  been 
shown  in  the  power  which  they  have  given  their  members  at  tin 
of  pressure,  when  work  has  been  scarce,  to  migrate  to  neighbor- 
hoods where  employment  is  more  plentiful,  so  their  influence  1 
not  been  less  signally  or  satisfactorily  displayed  in  the  indue  ements 
which  the  organization  has  offered  to  its  members  to  watch  closi  ly 
the  events  of  the  day,  and  to  deduce  from  them  sound  political 
morals.  All  the  applied  sciences  are  much  studied,  geology  espe- 
cially being  a  favorite. 

The  working  life  of  the  miner  may  be  said  to  begin  at  fcw< 
years  of  age.     Before  the  Mines  Regulation  Act  came  into  force  -, ' 
age  was  often  ten,  and  ten  still  is  the  number  of  hours  a  day  whi  -h 
he  is  on  duty,  beginning  work  usually  at  six  a.  m.  and  leavinj 
foiu-  p.  m.     The  phases  of  industry  to  which  the  miner's  exist*  ace  is 
at  successive  stages  devoted  are  pretty  nearly  as  follows:  —He  serv<  a 
his  apprenticeship  for  the  first  three  years,  being  charged  dur 
this  time  with  the  duty  of  driving  the  horses  thai   draw  away   ' 
loads  of  coal  from  beneath  the  axes  of  the  men  <  tach  it   in 

huge  blocks.     This  style  of  toil  is  technically    '  as  thai  of 

"putting."     Really  exhausting  work  is  seldom  begun  till  the  physi- 


1CI  ENGLAND. 

cal  system  is  fairly  set,  and  at  the  age  of  eighteen  or  twenty  the  lad 
who  has  hitherto  been  fulfilling  comparatively  light  duties  as  "  put- 
ter "  will  be  promoted  to  the  more  arduous  calling  of  a  "  hewer." 
This  pursuit  is  the  normal  business  of  the  full-grown  miner,  and  he 
continues  at  it  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things  till  he  has  arrived  at 
or  has  exceeded  the  limit  of  middle  age.  Sometimes  he  continues 
a  "hewer  "  till  he  is  upwards  of  three-score  years  and  ten,  but  it  is 
exceedingly  seldom  that  his  system  stands  the  prolongation  of  the 
strain  beyond  the  age  of  fifty  or  sixty.  Even  when  he  is  superannu- 
ated there  is  still  work  for  him  to  do  on  the  establishment  of  the 
mine;  thus  he  may  be  employed  as  a  shifter  when  he  is  too  old  to 
do  active  work  as  a  hewer,  and  in  this  capacity  he  will  have  to  clear 
the  ground  for  the  hewers  after  the  regular  day's  toil  is  over.  It  is 
difficult  to  speak  comprehensively  as  to  the  wages  of  the  miner, 
which  vary  not  only  according  to  localities,  but  according  to  the 
condition  of  business,  which  is  itself  a  very  fluctuating  quantity. 
The  "  putters,"  who  are  paid  by  the  score,  earn  from  2s.  6d.  to  3s. 
6d.  a  day;  the  "hewers,"  who  are  paid  by  the  piece,  may  make  as 
much  as  5s.  a  day:  the  "shifters"  are  seldom  remunerated  at  a 
higher  rate  than  the  "putters."  It  is  to  be  noticed,  however,  that 
in  those  cases  in  which,  as  in  Northumberland,  the  daily  wage  ia 
higher,  it  very  often  happens  that  the  total  annually  made  is  lower, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  the  work  is  less  continuous. 

Something  has  already  been  said  of  the  general  attitude  of  the 
English  working  man  towards  his  employer.  Though  daily  experi- 
ence testifies  to  a  great  and  growing  improvement  in  the  relations 
between  the  representatives  of  capital  and  labor,  we  are  still  a  long 
way  from  the  ideal  which  the  patient  resignation  of  the  operatives 
of  Lancashire  and  the  north,  with  admirable  composure  to  the  mel- 
ancholy results  of  the  paralysis  in  the  cotton  trade  consequent  upon 
the  American  civil  war,  led  some  persons  rather  precipitately  to  ex- 
pect. The  truth  is,  that  the  Lancashire  working  classes,  during  this 
great  struggle,  curbed  their  discontent,  because  their  political  in- 
structors told  them  to  recognize  the  issue  between  two  grand  prin- 
ciples in  the  war — freedom  and  slavery.  The  want  and  distress, 
they  were  taught  to  believe,  were  the  insej^arable  accidents  of  a  con- 
test which  could  only  end  in  the  triumphant  assertion  of  the  rights 
of  human  nature  and  the  sanctity  of  human  freedom.  On  the  other 
hand,  whenever  the  attitude  of  the  working  classes,  under  pressure 
of  sore  distress,  has  been  less  tranquil,  it  is  illogical  and  unjust  to 
recognize  the  motive  or  source  of  trouble  in  unionism,  and  to  look 
back  regretfully  to  the  period  when  the  laws  prohibiting  combina- 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  lo- 

tion were  in  full  force.  Considerable  restrictions  were  imposed 
upon  industrial  combination  till  within  the  last  quarter  of  a  oenttu 
but  with  results  that  can  scarcely  be  considered  advantageous  t.>  the 
relations  of  employer  and  employed.  In  1811  the  town,  neighbor- 
hood, and  county  of  Nottingham  were  terrorized  by  nanus  «>!'  oper- 
atives in  the  hosiery  trade  on  strike,  who  went  about  destroying 
frames  at  the  rate  of  two  hundred  a  week.  They  made  their  attacks 
in  parties  of  from  six  to  fifty,  armed  with  swords,  pistols,  sled 
hammers,  and  axes.  On  one  occasion  they  held  the  town  against 
the  regular  soldiers,  who  were  called  in  to  quell  the  disturbance, 
and  peace  was  barely  maintained  by  the  concentration  of  a  military 
force  of  about  800  horse  and  1,000  foot  around  Nottingham.  Still 
the  destruction  of  frames  increased.  At  the  Nottingham  March  As- 
sizes, 1812,  four  frame-breakers  were  sentenced  to  fourteen,  and 
three  to  seven  years'  transportation.  In  the  same  month  an  Act 
was  passed  punishing  with  death  any  person  deliberately  breaking  a 
frame,  a  measure  memorable,  if  on  no  other  account,  for  the  pro- 
test which  it  elicited  from  Lord  Byron.  "Whilst,"  he  said,  speak- 
ing in  the  House  of  Peers,  "these  outrages  must  be  admit  ted  to 
exist  to  an  alarming  extent,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  they  have  arisen 
from  circumstances  of  the  most  unparalleled  distress.  The  perse- 
verance of  these  miserable  men  in  their  proceedings  tends  to  prove 
that  nothing  but  absolute  want  cordd  have  driven  a  large  and  once 
honest  and  industrious  body  of  the  people  into  the  commission  of 
excesses  so  hazardous  to  themselves,  their  families,  and  the  com- 
munity." Meanwhile  the  outrages  continued.  In  October,  181 1, 
the  house  of  a  man  who  had  caused  the  apprehension  of  a  "  Lud- 
dite  "  was  attacked,  and  an  encounter  ensued,  in  which  one  of  the 
assailants  was  shot.  Altogether  about  1,000  stocking  frames  and  so 
lace  machines  were  destroyed  during  this  period  of  popular  frenzy. 
Disturbances  almost  as  serious  were  repeated  more  than  twenty 
years  later,  with  the  additional  accompaniment  of  incendiarism  upon 
a  formidable  scale.  There  are  many  persons  living  who  can  well 
recollect  the  ominous  spectacle,  visible  from  Nottingham  Castle,  <>f 
nineteen  ricks  simultaneously  in  flames;  and  the  great  feature  in  all 
this  is  that  it  did  not  provoke  any  strong  outburst  of  public  indigna- 
tion, as  trade  outrages  of  all  kinds  have  recently  done. 

In  the  present  day,  if  ten  men  are  on  strike  in  any  manufactur- 
ing town  in  the  United  Kingdom,  the  circumstance  is  immediately 
reported,  probably  commented  upon,  in  the  daily  newspapers,  and 
gloomy  prognostications  are  drawn  of  an  impending  war  between 
capital  and  labor,  and  its  possible  results.     It  is  not  to  be  claimed 


166  ENGLAND. 

on  behalf  of  trade  unions  that  they  have  wrung  from  the  working 
classes  a  rigid  determination  to  recognize  in  their  demands  and  in 
their  acts  the  undeviating  operation  of  inexorable  economic  laws,  or 
that  they  have  exorcised  completely  the  evil  spirit  of  violence  and 
outrage.  But  in  the  last  decade  there  have  only  been  two  notable 
instances  of  unionist  scandals  —  the  first,  that  of  the  Broadhead 
riot  at  Sheffield  in  1867;  the  second,  that  which  culminated  in 
the  firing  of  Colonel  Jackson's  house  in  Lancashire  eleven  years 
later.  In  both  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  these  crimes  were 
bitterly  regretted  and  unequivocably  condemned  by  the  majority  of 
the  class  which  had  to  bear  the  burden  of  their  reproach. 

To  what  is  it  legitimate  to  attribute  the  undoubted  improvement 
in  feeling  between  employers  and  employed  in  England  ?  It  may 
be  inferred  from  the  few  but  essentially  typical  data  given  above 
that  whatever  the  charges  of  conspiracy  and  violence  brought  against 
unionists  and  unionism,  they  are  entirely  eclipsed  by  the  outbreaks 
of  popular  frenzy  in  those  days  in  which  no  such  organizations  as 
trade  unions  existed.  The  fact  is,  that  though  the  trade  union  is 
comparatively  an  institution  of  modern  growth,  it  is  in  eveiy  way  an 
improvement  upon  its  predecessor,  the  secret  society.  Combination 
is  an  instinct  which,  as  the  law  cannot  eradicate  it,  it  is  sound  policy 
on  the  part  of  the  law  to  recognize.  It  exists  in  professions  as  well 
as  trades  and  industries,  in  the  learned  professions  as  well  as  in  the 
unlearned;  in  the  medical,  legal,  and  clerical  professions,  as  well  as 
in  the  commercial..  The  trade  union  is,  in  fact,  only  an  application 
of  that  principle  of  association  which  is  part  of  human  nature.  This 
the  Duke  of  Argyle  has  pointed  out  with  considerable  force  in  his 
chapter  on  association  in  the  "  Bcign  of  Law."  Combination  has  its 
origin  in  the  inborn  impulse  of  self-defense.  Take  the  case  of  Pres- 
ton, or  Blackburn,  or  any  other  center  of  the  cotton  industry.  All 
the  enqiloyes  are  engaged  in  much  the  same  kind  of  labor,  fine 
spinning  or  coarse  spinning,  as  the  case  may  be — for  it  is  a  notable 
characteristic  of  the  extent  to  which  the  principle  of  the  division  of 
labor  has  been  carried  that  it  not  merely  concentrates  the  same 
kind  of  labor  in  given  localities,  but  the  same  qualities  of  work  pro- 
duced. The  hands  in  one  mill  are  threatened  with  a  reduction  of 
wages  at  the  hands  of  an  employer,  who  thinks  he  sees  the  way 
clear  to  a  substantial  increase  in  his  profits.  Why,  is  the  natural 
question,  should  they  work  for  less  than  their  neighbors  ?  When 
this  state  of  feeling  is  once  arrived  at,  and  this  question  asked, 
you  have  potential  trade  unionism.  One  mill  communicates  with 
another,  and  the  next  thing  is  its  actual  existence.     There  is  no  re- 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  1(J7 

sisting  the  contagious  sense  of  united  interest  which  is  generated 
Employers  may  like  it  or  dislike  it.  It  is  the  inevitable  response  on 
the  part  of  the  laborer  to  a  sentiment  which  is  quite  as  natural  and 
quite  as  sure  in  some  way  or  other  to  assert  itself  on  the  part  <>f  the 
capitalist.  Society  being  subdivided  as  it  aovt  is.  unionism  and  the 
spirit  of  unionism  are  its  certain  and  necessary  outcome. 

How  is  this  resultant  force  to  be  met  ?  How  is  the  crash  of  the 
collision  between  the  two  antagonistic  interests  to  be  removed? 
Just  as  in  human  nature  the  instinct  of  sympathy  is  the  comp<  o  ating 
principle  to  the  instinct  of  selfishness,  so  in  the  system  of  trade  and 
industry  do  arbitration  and  conciliation  act  as  the  counterpoisi 
'  unionism.  In  arbitration,  as  it  is  perpetually  exercised  in  industrial 
England,  there  may  be  found  a  practical  fulfillment  of  the  "Conseil 
des  Prud'hommes."  Twenty  years  ago  the  idea  was  first  suggested 
by  Mr.  A.  J.  Mundella,  a  little  later  was  actively  espoused  by  Mr. 
Rupert  Kettle  and  Mr.  David  Dale,  and  after  twenty  years  of  trial  it 
may  be  pronounced  a  fact.  It  was,  indeed,  at  first  equally  opposed 
by  masters  and  men.  Mutual  jealousies  and  embitterments  threat- 
ened permanently  to  bar  the  way  to  any  thing  like  friendly  settle- 
ment and  peaceful  compromises,  nor  was  it  till  after  the  report  of 
the  Trades  Union  Commission  that  the  experiment  made  any  very 
marked  degree  of  progress.  Since  then  the  new  idea  that  trade  dis- 
putes can  be  settled  without  resort  to  the  internecine  war  of  strikes 
by  mediation  and  argument  has  strongly  possessed  the  working  man 
of  England,  till  now  it  may  fairly  be  said  that  the  strike,  instead 
of  being  the  first  expedient  to  employ  for  obtaining  industrial  rights, 
is  regarded  as  a  last  resort.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  it  is  of  the 
essence  of  this  scheme  that  conciliation  and  arbitration  should  go 
hand  in  hand,  that  the  conference  between  the  representatives  of 
the  two  interests  should  not  wait  till  the  struggle  has  actually  assert- 
ed itself,  but  that  periodical  meetings,  whenever  occasion  may  seem 
to  render  them  desirable,  should  be  held  between  associated  work- 
men and  associated  employers.  The  most  intelligent  of  the  union- 
ists perceive  that  many  of  their  laws  have  been  thoroughly  had, 
unjust,  and  therefore  impolitic  both  in  their  results  to  labor  and 
then-  political  bearing.  The  wisest  of  the  unionist  teachers,  on  the 
platform  and  in  the  press,  do  not  fail  boldly  to  point  out  where  the 
defects  of  such  laws  are,  and  what  must  be  their  consequent  a. 
Thus  ttie  regulations  and  conditions  of  unionism  have  been  gradu- 
ally brought  into  something  more  like  accord  with  economic  laws, 
and  the  tendency  has  been  established  to  regard  the  natural  rela- 
tions between  employed  and  employer,  not  as  a  state  of  supprt  B»  d 


168  ENGLAND. 

war  ultimately  to  be  decided  on  the  starving-out  principle,  in  which 
full  freedom  to  light  to  the  bitter  end  was  the  privilege  and  the 
right  of  either  combatant,  but  as  a  condition  in  which  there  is  much 
real  identity  of  interests,  while  apparent  differences  can  be  adjusted 
without  any  abrupt  declaration  of  hostilities. 

The  progressive  development  of  this  idea  can  be  traced  geograph- 
ically. It  asserted  itself  successively  at  the  three  great  centers  of 
the  iron  trade;  first,  among  the  Cleveland,  or  the  northern  iron- 
workers; secondly,  among  the  Staffordshire  ironworkers;  thirdly, 
among  the  ironworkers  of  South  Yorkshire.  In  the  case  of  the 
northern  ironworks  its  results  have  been  visible  upon  a  very  con- 
spicuous scale.  Actively  adopted  by  the  exceedingly  intelligent  op- 
eratives in  this  district  ten  years  ago,  it  has  stood  the  test  of  the 
two  extremes  of  uncommon  commercial  prosperity  and  depression. 
Since  its  adoption  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  there  has  been  no  repeti- 
tion of  the  desolating  strikes,  such  as  in  18G5  created  misery  and 
havoc  throughout  the  district  for  the  space  of  eleven  months.  In 
every  bad  strike  of  recent  years  the  men  have  either  asked  for 
arbitration,  or  a  resolution  in  favor  of  arbitration  has  never  been 
met  by  a  counter-resolution.  Thus  in  the  South  "Wales  strike  of 
1873  the  men  implored  arbitration,  and  the  fact  is  the  more  signifi- 
cant seeing  that  it  was  the  employers  who  ultimately  lost  the  battle. 
Again,  in  the  masons'  strike  of  1877  there  was  the  same  undoubted 
desire  for  arbitration;  while  it  was  believed  by  the  best  authorities 
that  the  Lancashire  cotton  strikes  of  1878  could  have  been  en- 
tirely prevented  if  the  proper  machinery  for  arbitration  had  existed, 
for  if  the  machinery  is  to  be  effective  in  time  of  trial,  it  must  be 
because  it  has  been  carefully  prepared  in  time  of  peace. 

As  regards  the  masons'  strike  of  1877  in  London,  one  of  its  least 
agreeable  features  was  the  violence  offered  by  the  English  work- 
men to  those  whom  the  masters  had  imported  from  the  Continent. 
Hence  the  inference  was  drawn  that  the  English  workman  was  ani- 
mated by  a  fierce  desire  not  to  tolerate  the  presence  of  a  foreign 
rival  upon  any  consideration,  and  that  the  demand  was  for  the  pro- 
tection of  native  industry  at  any  cost.  Yet  examples  of  British  and 
foreign  working  men  plying  their  tasks  in  perfect  peace  and  harmony 
side  by  side  are  not  rare,  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the 
outrageous  manner  in  which  the  London  masons  resented  the  pres- 
ence of  the  new-comers  was  inspired  by  any  deeper  feeling  than 
irritation  at  the  beginning  of  a  new  order,  or  genuinely  British 
prejudice  against  the  stranger  and  the  alien.  The  cry  of  protection 
to  native  industry  has  been  raised,  but  there  is  no  prospect  of  its 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES. 

becoming-  the  watchword  of  a  really  groat  organization.  The  En- 
glish working  man  is  in  these  matters  much  as  his  social  superior. 

He  does  not  like  foreigners  in  the  mass,  and  he  is  particularly  jealous 
of  the  introduction  of  any  individual  foreigner.  But  alter  a  time  he 
accepts  the  inevitable.     The  multiplied  opportunities  of  higher  and 

technical  education  which  he  enjoys  render  him  the  more  dispo  i  I 
to  do  this.  The  lectures  on  various  subjects  connected  with  art 
and  industry  given  in  our  great  towns — many  of  them  local  centers 
of  university  teaching — the  various  other  agencies  of  secondary  edu- 
cation, the  study  not  only  of  books  but  of  the  contents  of  art  mu- 
seums, have  largely  extended  the  industrial  purview  of  the  English 
working  man,  have  been  as  the  key  which  has  unlocked  to  him  a  new- 
world,  and  are  gradually  impressing  upon  him  the  possibility  and 
expediency  of  increasing  the  value  of  the  labor  of  his  hands  by  the 
application  to  it  of  the  finish  and  graces  of  art,  and  of  thus  utilizing 
art  as  a  new  source  of  industrial  wealth. 

Of  the  political  questions  which  periodically  agitate  the  working 
classes,  there  are  three  that  may  here  be  mentioned.  The  working 
man  likes  the  idea  of  a  big  England  rather  than  a  small,  for  he  E 
in  it  the  assertion  of  the  dignity  and  power  of  his  country  on  a  scale 
worthy  of  its  historical  antecedents,  and  he  sees  in  it  also  a  long  vista 
of  increased  opportunities  for  his  class.  It  is  an  idea  which  grati- 
fies his  pride  as  a  patriot,  and  commends  itself  to  his  interests  as  a 
laborer.  But  there  is  something  that  is  of  more  immediate  concern 
to  him  than  a  big  England.  Trade  and  labor — such  is  the  burden 
of  his  complaint — are  too  generally  ignored  by  the  whole  body  of 
Parliament.  Why  does  not,  he  sometimes  asks,  the  Governmi  it 
create  a  Minister  of  Commerce — a  portfolio  whose  holder  shall  be 
specially  charged  with  the  transaction  and  the  superintendence  of 
whatever  affects  the  well-being  of  trade,  commerce,  capital,  and 
labor?  Again,  how  long,  he  inquires,  will  labor  continue  to  be 
handicapped  by  the  unequal  burdens  which  the  repudiation  of  i 
trade  by  America,  by  the  great  nations  of  continental  Europe,  by 
the  chief  of  our  own  colonies,  imposes?  If  it  is  asked  how  far 
the  working  classes  sincerely  look  to  Parliament  to  remedy  thi 
and  other  grievances,  the  answer  is  not  quite  easy  to  give.  Tin  re 
is  undoubtedly  a  disposition  on  the  pari  of  working  m<  n  of  many 
shades  and  varieties  of  political  thought  to  promote  the  movement 
I  for  the  direct  representation  of  the  interests  of  labor  in  the  Bo 
of  Commons.  But  it  cannot  be  said  that  working  men  are  funda- 
mentally agreed  as  to  the  probable  efficacy  of  this  scheme.  <  >n  the 
contrary,  working  men  do  not  as  a  rule  seem  to  believe  in  working- 


170  ENGLAND. 

men  members  of  Parliament.  They  are  also  apt  to  be  somewhat 
jealous  of  leaders  who  belong  to  their  own  number.  If  their  man 
gets  into  Parliament  they  are  troubled  with  a  misgiving  that  he  will 
in  some  undefined  way  or  other  be  "got  at";  that  he  will  not  be 
permitted  to  vote  "  straight  " ;  that  social  pressure  will  be  brought 
to  bear  ivpon  him;  that  he  may  prove  a  renegade  to  the  good  cause. 
Yet  the  dream  still  vaguely  flits  before  the  vision  of  our  English 
workmen  of  sending  to  Parliament  a  number  of  representatives  who 
shall  form  a  labor  party  at  Westminster,  just  as  there  is  already  a 
Home  Ride  party. 

When  one  comes  to  the  personality  of  the  English  working  man 
in  towns,  one  is  met  not  only  by  the  fact  which  has  been  already 
noticed — the  multitude  of  typical  varieties — but  by  the  noticeable 
difference  between  the  working  man  as  he  exists  in  London  and  in 
the  provinces.  One  great  distinction  is  that,  whereas  in  the  major- 
ity of  instances  the  provincial  working  man  leader  is  more  or  less 
prominently  identified  with  some  form  of  religion,  the  leaders  of  the 
London  working  men  are  more  often  professed  secularists.  Tak- 
ing the  industrial  classes  of  England  as  a  whole,  there  is  no  reason 
to  think  that  the  influence  of  religion  is  declining  amongst  them. 
Whatever  may  be  their  own  professions,  they  have  no  idea  of  edu- 
cating their  children  in  infidelity,  and  when  mortal  sickness  comes, 
they  will  ask  the  ministration  of  some  church  or  other  for  them- 
selves. Mr.  Bradlaugh  and  other  "  free  thought "  lecturers  fail  to 
command  in  the  provinces  any  thing  like  the  audiences  they  secure 
in  London.  On  the  other  hand,  whereas  a  lecture  on  political  econ- 
omy, or  some  other  subject  of  commercial  or  industrial  interest, 
would  be  listened  to  by  two  or  three  thousand  eager  hearers  in 
Blackburn  or  Preston,  Sheffield  or  Manchester,  it  would  be  ad- 
dressed to  little  better  than  an  array  of  empty  benches  in  the  capi- 
tal of  the  empire.  Generally  it  may  be  said  that  in  the  matter  of 
religion,  as  in  so  many  others,  the  working  classes  reflect  the  condi- 
tion of  their  superiors.  If  there  is  more  active  aggressive  disbelief 
in  England  at  the  present  time  than  formerly,  there  is  also  more 
active  and  genuine  religion.  It  is  the  profession  of  disbelief  which 
is  quite  as  characteristic  of  this  age  as  the  spread  of  disbelief.  Sides 
are  actively  taken  where  once  the  spirit  of  partisanship  was  domi- 
nant, and  the  battle  of  the  creeds  is  fought  where  formerly  the  bel- 
ligerents were  lulled  in  an  indolent  neutrality. 

The  London  working  man  possesses  many  of  the  best  points  of 
his  order,  while  at  the  same  time  he  has  not  a  few  of  then-  failings. 
He  is  proud  of  living  in  the  metropolis  of  the  kingdom.     He  is  sen- 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  171 

sible  of  a  geographical  superiority  over  his  provincial  brethren.  Be 
is  very  often  ludicrously  self-conscious  and  grotesquely  vain.  He  is, 
at  the  same  time,  exceedingly  plausible,  and  not  less  shallow  quick 
to  perceive  those  features  iu  any  subject  of  the  day  which  are  cal- 
culated to  affect  him  most,  anil  in  answering  questions,  skillful  in 
making  his  replies  subservient  to  the  interest  of  his  own  case,  and 
very  careful  to  conceal  all  which  he  considers  can  in  any  way  tell 
against  that  case.  In  matters  relative  to  organization  he  is,  as  wo 
have  already  seen,  at  a  great  disadvantage  as  compared  with  bis 
provincial  brother.  The  immense  number  of  industries  collected 
together  in  London,  the  corporate  feeling  of  the  men  engaged  in 
which  is  exceedingly  strong,  go  far  to  neutralize  each  other.  In 
addition  to  the  diversity  of  employments  a  further  force  of  segrega- 
tion is  due  to  the  distance  at  which  those  engaged  in  them  live  from 
the  scene  of  then-  labor,  and  above  all  to  the  competing  attraction  of 
the  legion  of  popular  amusements. 

Another  cardinal  distinction  between  the  working  man  in  Lon- 
don and  the  working  man  in  the  provinces  is  that  in  the  former  he 
is  almost  always  a  lodger,  and  in  the  latter,  with  very  few  excep- 
'  tions,  a  householder.  At  Sheffield,  or  Birmingham,  or  in  any  of  the 
manufacturing  towns  or  mining  districts,  .it  would  be  considered 
scarcely  creditable  to  the  workman,  unless  he  was  a  bachelor,  if  he 
did  not  inhabit  a  house  of  his  own.  Built  of  red  brick  or  gray  stone, 
these  houses  are  for  the  most  part  kept  astonishingly  neat  and  clean, 
and  it  is  seldom  that  evil  odors  assail  one's  nostrils,  except  when  the 
dwelling  is  in  the  heart  of  one  of  those  rookeries  which  are  now 
gradually  disappearing.  Frequently,  too,  the  lodging  of  the  Lon- 
don workman  is  as  well  ordered  as  the  home  of  his  provincial  broth- 
er. "  In  some  of  the  London  suburbs — such  as  Chelsea,  or  Kensing- 
ton— it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  call  upon  the  mason  or  joiner  who 
is  making  thirty  shillings  a  week,  and  to  find  him  settled  in  the  base- 
ment of  a  roomy  house,  let  out  into  lodgings,  the  window  of  his 
sitting-room  commanding  a  view  of  a  fernery  improvised  in  the  area, 
which  is  made  picturesque  with  flowers  and  evergreens.  But  even 
thus  the  domestic  sentiment  has  but  slight  force  amongst  the  work- 
ing classes  of  London,  in  comparison  with  that  which  it  exercises  in 
the  country.  Music-halls  and  other  entertainments  are  as  popular 
amongst  the  working  men  of  London  as  they  are  the  reverse  with 
the  better  stamp  of  working  men  out  of  it,  and  these  distractions 
render  the  concentration  of  the  working  classes  in  London,  up  >n 
any  given  occasion  and  for  any  given  purpose,  exceedingly  difficult 
To  post  on  the  hoardings  of  London  enough  bills  to  reach  the  bulk 


172  ENGLAND. 

of  the  working  population  would  cost  over  £100,  and  the  conse- 
quence is  that  the  attempt  is  very  seldom  made.  Hence  one  of  the 
reasons  why  co-operation,  which  has  succeeded  so  well  in  the  great 
towns  of  the  north,  has  never  proved  successful  amongst  the  work- 
ing classes  of  London.  Frequent  periodical  meetings,  during  its 
earlier  days,  and  continued  concentration  of  interest  afterwards,  are 
necessary  for  the  success  of  such  an  enterprise.  These  are  just 
what  cannot  be  had  in  London,  where  the  complaint  is  that  the 
working  classes  cannot  be  got  to  act  together  and  keep  together. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  perhaps  more  sociality  and  good  fellow- 
ship amongst  the  working  classes  in  London  than  in  the  country, 
though  the  institutions  of  the  Sunday  dinner  and  Sunday  tea,  both 
of  them  eminently  characteristic  of  the  English  working  classes,  are 
common  both  to  London  and  the  provinces.  The  former  of  these 
is  a  function  of  some  importance.  It  is  the  culinary  event  of  the 
week.  There  are  better  dishes,  and  some  variety  of  them ;  the  fur- 
niture of  the  table  and  the  manners  of  the  company — for  two  or 
three  friends  are  invariably  invited — are  of  a  corresponding  order 
of  superiority.  Tea  is  a  meal  less  ceremonious,  but  equally  impor- 
tant in  its  way,  since  it  is  found  by  experience  to  furnish  the  chosen 
opportunity  of  the  matrimonial  diplomatist. 


1 


CHAPTER   XI. 

THE    WORKING    CLASSES    (continued). 

General  View  of  Changes  and  Improvements  in  the  Condition  of  the  Agri- 
cultural Laborer — Type  of  the  English  Peasant — His  Career  traced  from 
Cradle  to  Grave — His  Daily  Life — Different  Kinds  of  Farm  Laborers — 
Meals  and  Food  of  the  Class — Various  Specimens  of  Peasant  Population 
in  English  Villages — Changes  which  have  come  over  Village  Life — The 
Co-operative  Store — The  Dawn  of  Knowledge — How  the  English  Peasant- 
ry are  Domiciled — Scandals  removed  and  Evils  remaining-  Allotments: 
their  Uses  and  Danger — Different  Modes  of  Hire  and  Manners  of  Payment 
of  Rural  Population — Hiring  of  Families — Labor  of  Women— General  Sys- 
tem and  Progress  of  Agriculture  in  England — Mutual  Relation  of  Tenant 
Farmers  and  Landlords — Property  of  Tenant  Farmers — Wages  of  Agricul- 
tural Class — Improvement  and  Fluctuations — General  Position  and  Pros- 
perity of  the  Rural  Working  Population. 

THE  combined  influences  of  science  and  commerce  have  scarcely 
more  transformed  the  surface  of  the  earth  than  modern  rural 
improvements,  whether  they  have  had  their  origin  in  legislative  sanc- 
tion or  in  a  growing  sense  of  the  responsibilities  of  ownership,  have 
changed  the  moral  and  physical  aspects  of  the  country  villages  of 
England.  That  neat  new  building,  with  the  courtyard  round  it, 
and  a  compact  as  well  as  picturesque  dwelling-house  in  a  carefully 
cultivated  garden  hard  by,  is  the  new  village  school.  Many  thou- 
sands of  these  structures  dot  the  length  and  breadth  of  rural  England. 
"Well  ventilated  and  well  equipped  with  school  furniture,  maps,  and 
I  educational  apparatus  generally,  they  answer  other  purposes  than 
that  of  being  places  for  the  instruction  of  boys  and  girls  during 
the  day.  It  is  as  likely  as  not  that  night  classes  are  held  in  tl  I 
throughout  the  winter  months  for  the  benefit  of  the  unlettered 
adults.  The  secular  village  school  on  week-days  is  probably  the 
religious  school  on  Sundays.  Lectures,  penny  readings,  and  con- 
certs will  also  be  held  within  the  same  precincts.  The  sch<  »ol  is  often 
the  assembly-room  of  the  district,  as  well  as  the  symbol  and  the 
center  of  its  intellectual  enlightenment.  Nor  is  the  improving  hand 
of  time  seen  less  plainly  upon  the  cottages  round  about.  The  p< 
ant's  home  is  gradually  ceasing  to  be  the  human  sty  in  which  for 


174  ENGLAND. 

generations  he  dwelt.  The  squalid  cottages,  constructed  and  in- 
habited in  defiance  of  every  known  sanitary  principle,  are  disap» 
pearing,  and  their  places  are  being  taken  by  neat  rows  of  brick 
houses,  mostly  built  in  sets  of  two,  each  being  nearly  the  exact 
counterpart  of  the  other,  with  kitchen,  pantry,  and  sitting-room  on 
the  ground  floor,  and  above  three  well- ventilated  bedrooms;  a  yard 
behind,  and  in  it  a  small  outhouse  for  the  stowage  of  fuel.  In  no 
part  of  England  does  the  rent  of  these  cottages  probably  exceed 
os.  a  week.  In  the  rural  districts  of  East  Anglia  it  is  rarely  on  large 
estates  more  than  Is.  6d.  a  week,  and  never  more  than  2s.  In  addi- 
tion to  his  house  and  garden — the  latter  yielding  enough  vegetable 
produce  for  the  family — our  laborer  may  perhaps  have  within  an 
easy  distance  of  his  dwelling  an  allotment  of  a  quarter  of  an  acre, 
held  on  a  rental,  it  may  be,  of  10s.  a  year.  Here  he  grows  more 
vegetables,  or  maintains  a  cow  or  a  donkey  upon  the  pasturage  of 
the  soil.  Such  allotments  frequently  adjoin  each  other,  and  it  is 
a  sight  not  unknown  in  some  more  favored  districts  to  watch,  on 
Sunday  evening,  the  tenants  of  these  slips  of  ground  walking  round 
their  property  and  inspecting  its  condition  with  evident  satisfaction 
and  pride. 

The  regular  hours  of  day  labor  are  ten,  and  as  half  an  hour  is 
deducted  for  breakfast,  a  working  day  consists  of  9^  hours.  In  the 
haymaking  season  and  harvest-time,  when  extra  pay  is  given,  or 
the  work  is  put  out  by  the  piece,  the  hours  are  longer.  In  winter 
eight  hours,  and  in  some  cases  only  seven,  represent  the  daily  aver- 
age of  toil.  The  diet  of  the  cottager  and  his  family  consists  chiefly 
of  bread,  potatoes,  bacon,  and  cheese.  He  has  usually  had  a  cup 
of  tea  and  a  piece  of  bread,  with  bacon  as  a  relish,  before  he  leaves 
home  in  the  morning.  At  his  early  dinner  he  has  vegetables  and 
pickled  meat,  and  if  you  enter  his  cottage  about  the  hour  of  supyper, 
your  nostrils  will  detect  a  savory  appetizing  smell,  and  your  ears 
will  catch  the  suggestive  sound  of  frying.  .  In  many  parts  of  En- 
gland, notably  in  the  north  and  in  the  midlands,  there  has  been  a 
sensible  improvement  in  the  last  few  years  in  the  art  of  rustic  cook- 
ery. The  wives  and  daughters  of  the  clergy  and  resident  gentry 
have  done  much  towards  carrying  the  principles  of  scientific  cookery 
into  the  homes  of  the  poor,  by  giving  friendly  lessons  and  hints,  by 
writing  out  receipts  for  them,  and  practically  illustrating  their  exe- 
cution on  the  joccasion  of  their  periodical  visits.  Nor  must  the  bene- 
ficent influences  of  the  spread  of  cheap  and  instructive  publications 
be  forgotten.  "Hints  on  Cookery"'  are  a  regular  feature  in  the 
journals  which  make  their  way  into  the  dwellings  of  the  rural  poor. 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  17.", 

That  the  reader  may  easily  learn  who  and  -wind  manner  of  man 
the  English  country  working  man  is,  it  may  be  well  personally  to 
introduce  him  without  further  delay  upon  the  stage,  to  accompany 
him  not  merely  through  his  ordinary  round  of  daily  toil,  but  also 
through  the  successive  vicissitudes  of  his  career  from  infancy  till  old 
age.  Here  then,  let  it  be  supposed,  he  stands  before  us,  long  ere 
he  has  arrived  at  the  threshold  of  his  actively  working  existence — a 
sturdy  little  urchin,  with  face  reddened  and  browned  !>;,•  the  com- 
bined influences  of  wind  and  sun.  The  distinctively  rural  dress 
which  children  in  agricultural  districts  once  used  to  wear  is  seldom 
seen  now.  The  small  boy  we  are  looking  on  is  not  clad  in  the  rough 
smock  with  which  we  were  formerly  familiar,  but  in  a  suit  consist- 
ing of  a  little  round  jacket  and  knickerbockers,  bought  at  the  mar- 
ket town.  His  sister,  who  is  at  his  side,  wears  a  costume  which  has 
equally  little  that  is  specially  Arcadian  about  it,  and  which  is  com- 
posed of  a  cheap  material  made  up  after  the  London  fashion  The 
great  ambition  of  this  small  girl  will  be,  before  her  schooling  days 
are  over,  to  go  into  domestic  service,  and  then  to  find  a  husband  in 
some  gentleman's  footman,  or  butler,  attaining  finally  to  the  dignity 
of  landlady  of  some  country-town  inn,  or  thriving  public-lions.-. 
For  the  boy  a  different  future  is  reserved.  At  the  jxresent  moment 
he  is,  let  us  say,  eight  or  nine  years  of  age,  and  in  the  old  da;  , 
before  Education  Acts  were  heard  of,  he  would  have  been  already 
at  work  as  a  bird-tender,  or  scarer  in  the  fields.  He  would  have 
grown  up  utterly  unlearned  and  illiterate,  but  before  he  was  twelve 
he  would  have  mastered  many  a  valuable  lesson  from  the  book  of 
nature;  would  have  the  names  of  all  the  horses  employed  on  the 
farm,  and  the  peculiarities  and  strength  of  each,  by  heart;  would 
have  become  an  authority  on  the  homes  and  habits  of  the  birds  of 
the  ah'  and  the  beasts  of  the  field;  would  have  been  able  to  tell  at 
a  distance  that  defied  the  penetrative  power  of  ordinary  ej-es,  the 
spot  on  which  the  hare  was  crouching,  or  the  bird  had  settled. 
Night  schools  and  Sunday  schools  might  have  taught  him  somet : 
but  if  he  grew  up  to  manhood  tinctured  with  the  simplest  rudiments 
of  reading  and  writing  he  was  esteemed  a  paragon,  and  spoken  of 
as  a  "rare  fine  scholard." 

All  this  is  changed  now.  Our  future  agricultural  laborer  is  pre- 
vented by  law  from  being  sent  to  work  at  all  before  he  is  ten  ; 
of  age,  and  the  tendency  of  School  Boards  and  Boards  of  Guardians, 
who  in  some  rural  districts  have  practically  the  powers  of  School 
Boards,  is  to  impose  as  a  qualifying  condition  of  work  a  standard 
not  only  of  age,  but  of  attainments.     On  every  day  of  the  week, 


176  ENGLAND. 

except  Saturday  and  Sunday,  lie  is,  or  ought  to  be,  at  school  from 
9  a.  m.  to  12  noon,  and  from  2  to  4.30  p.  m.  At  Christmas  there  are 
two  weeks  of  holidays,  and  during  harvest-time  a  month  or  more, 
in  order  that  the  children  may  assist  in  the  ingathering  of  the  grain. 
"When  he  commences  life  as  an  agricultural  laborer,  it  will  probably 
be  not  in  the  capacity  of  scarer — bird-scaring  is  now  generally  done 
by  inanimate  scarecrows — but  of  driver  of  horses,  or  plow-boy. 
In  some  parts  of  England  he  will  during  the  stage  of  his  appren- 
ticeship lodge  upon  the  farm  where  he  is  employed,  receiving  per- 
haps £13  a  year  in  addition  to  board  and  living.  For  the  most  part 
he  will  not  be  resident  under  the  actual  roof  of  his  employer,  but 
will  be  placed  in  the  cottage  of  the  hind,  who  receives  8s.  6d.  a 
week  from  his  employer.  In  the  performance  of  these  duties  he 
will  continue  for  some  years — not  the  less  fortunate  if  he  does  not 
happen  to  be  promoted  out  of  the  ordinary  routine  of  a  farm  ser- 
vant's duties.  Indeed,  the  ordinary  dav-laborer  on  an  English  farm, 
who  is  expected  to  put  his  hand  to  any  work  which  may  present 
itself,  is,  by  comparison,  the  best  paid,  as  he  is  also  the  most  in- 
dependent, of  all  agricultural  workmen.  The  shepherd  is  really 
never  off  duty  at  all.  He  is  liable  to  be  summoned  from  his  sleep 
at  any  hour  of  the  night,  and  when  he  is  once  out  he  knows  not 
when  he  may  expect  to  return.  The  carter,  too,  is  up  and  about 
betimes  with  the  first  gray  of  the  summer  dawn,  and  long  before 
the  stars  have  disappeared  from  the  heavens  on  the  winter  morn- 
ings. Again,  the  milkman  has  to  be  at  his  post  with  undeviating 
regularity  when  the  day  is  in  its  infancy  throughout  the  year.  Each 
of  these  laborers  has  probably  left  home  breakfastless,  and  has  been 
busy  for  two  or  three  hours  before  the  rank  and  file  of  the  farmer's 
staff  are  astir;  if  they  have  broken  their  fast  it  has  merely  been  with 
a  piece  of  bread,  and  perhaps  a  drink  of  cold  tea  or  of  milk  and 
water,  but  the  general  hands  are  not  necessarily  bound  to  these 
hardships.  There  is  nothing  in  the  hoiu*  at  which  their  duties  begin 
to  prevent  them  having  had  a  satisfying  meal  before  they  have  left 
home. 

But  we  are  anticipating  the  development  of  our  typical  laborer. 
He  has  now  reached  the  age  of  two  or  three  and  twenty.  He 
stands  five  feet  eight  inches  in  his  shoes;  he  is  spare  but  well  knit 
of  figure,  healthv  in  look,  and  sinerularly  deliberate  in  manner  and 
mien.  The  English  agricultural  laborer,  indeed,  is  never  known  to 
be  in  a  hurry.  His  costume  is  corduroy  or  fustian;  probably  he 
wears  knee-gaiters;  a  cotton  handkerchief  is  tied  round  his  neck; 
his  head  is  surmounted  by  a  slouch  hat;  and  his  boots  are  of  ini- 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  177 

mense  thickness,  studded  with  heavy  nails.     Such  is  his  external 
person,   which  has  sufficiently  commended  itself  to   some   villa 
maiden  to  secure  for  him  a  wife.     Even  if  ho  be  a  little  youn 
than  two  or  three  and  twenty,  the  chances  are  that  he  is  married, 
and  has  a  home  of  his  own.     Nor  does  his  home  see  much  more  of 
him  than  those  of  many  professional  gentlemen.     At  six  he  is  up, 
and  busied  with  preparing  for  himself  such  breakfast  as   he   can 
snatch.     At  half-past  six  he  is  off,  carrying,  perhaps,  in  a  basket  or 
handkerchief  his  provisions  for  the  day — a  loaf  of  white  bread  (the 
quality  of  the  loaf  of  the  agricultural  laborer  is  remarkably  good, 
and  it  is  a  maxim  with  his  wife  that  "  the  better  it  is  the  farther  it 
goes "),  a  piece  of  bacon  or  beef,  a  little  cheese  or  butter,  and  a 
bottle  of  cold  tea.     He  will  either  proceed  to  his  work  direct — to 
the  stables,  or  to  the  business  of  hedging  and  ditching,  as  the  case 
may  be — or  will  have  an  interview  with  the  farmer,  or  the  farm 
bailiff,  whose  business  it  is  to  allot  the  day's  labor  to  the  different 
members  of  the  staff,  and  will  work  on  till  9  a.  m.     Then  comes  the 
first  break,  and  a  second  breakfast  from  the  treasures  of  his  basket. 
At  noon  he  will  devote  another  spell  of  rest  to  the  consumption  of 
dinner,  the  materials  of  which  he  either  finds  in  the  basket  already 

)  mentioned  or  receives  from  home,  sent  by  the  hands  of  his  children 
— one  of  the  urchins  already  mentioned — for  it  is  seldom  that  he 
goes  home  till  work  is  done.     The  meal  over,  comes  a  pipe  or  a  nap, 

j  or  possibly  both,  and  at  1.30  r.  m.  he  is  busy  again.  Four  hours 
pass,  the  business  of  the  day  is  over,  and  the  agricultural  laborer 
turns  homewards,  bent  on  supper,  which  is  "the  one  real  family 
meal  of  the  day."* 

First,  however,  he  will,  we  may  expect,  look  round  his  garden, 
and  perhaps  do  a  little  piece  of  work,  or  examine  the  fattening  prog- 
ress of  his  pig.  Thus  engaged,  he  receives  the  summons  to  the  sup- 
per-table. The  children  have  already  taken  their  places.  Possibly 
he  has  a  daughter  home  from  service  as  a  guest,  who  will  contribute 
out  of  her  wages  to  the  domestic  treasury.  Under  any  circum- 
stances, if  times  are  fairly  prosperous  and  the  household  is  toleral  »ly 
well  managed,  the  meal  will  be  substantial.  There  will  be  mutton 
and  vegetables,  or  beef — not  a  prime  cut,  but,  still,  eatable  and 
noui-ishing — for  the  master  of  the  household  and  the  elders,  or  a 
mess  of  bacon  and  potatoes,  or  a  savory  mixture  of  chopped  meat, 
sage,  and  onions,  and  whatever  other  vegetables  the  garden  pro- 

*  So  called  by  Mr.  H.  J.  Little,  of  Colclhouse  Hall,  "Wisbeach,  to  whom  I  am 
indebted  for  many  facts  in  the  account  here  given  of  the  agricultural  laborer. 
See  "Journal  of  the  Eoyal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  xiv.,  1878. 

12 


178  ENGLAND. 

duces.  As  for  the  children,  they  will  have  pudding,  and  "bread  and 
treacle,  or  bread  and  dripping.  "When  this,  which  is  really  the  late 
dinner,  is  disposed  of,  our  agricultural  laborer  may,  if  it  be  summer, 
and  he  is  not  completely  fagged  out,  do  a  stroke  of  work  more  in 
his  garden;  or  if  he  take  an  interest  in  the  news  of  the  day,  or 
rather  of  several  days  ago,  dip  into  the  local  journal,  or  else  have 
the  print  read  aloud  to  him.  If  he  is  less  domesticated  there  is  the 
public-house,  a  fascinating  attraction  which  hard-toiling  humanity 
cannot  always  resist.  But  there  is  less  intoxication  and  disorderly 
conduct  than  formerly,  and  there  is  also  the  frequently  successful 
competition  of  the  village  club.  The  hay  and  wheat  harvest  are  the 
great  events  of  the  year,  and  the  most  profitable  seasons  of  his  in- 
dustry. Then  he  is  up  early  and  out  in  the  fields  till  late.  His 
children  are  near  him  at  work  too.  Money  passes  into  the  domestic 
exchequer,  and  his  financial  year  comes  to  an  end  when  the  last 
wagon-load  of  wheat  is  conveyed  to  the  threshing-floor.  The  bills 
which  his  social  betters  liquidate  at  Christmas  he  defrays  at  harvest- 
tide,  if  he  has  received  credit  from  any  local  tradesmen.  Thus  the 
year  runs  its  course,  and  as  it  is  with  one  year  so  is  it  with  its  suc- 
cessor. His  children  grow  up,  are  put  to  school,  go  out  to  work  if 
they  are  boys,  marry  in  their  turn,  and  set  up  for  themselves;  go 
into  service  if  they  are  girls,  or  take  employment  in  the  native  in- 
dustries of  the  town  hard  by,  or  with  the  sewing  machine.  To  bring 
up  his  family  weU  is  the  greatest  merit  which  the  English  agricul- 
tural laborer  can  claim.  Even  when  this  has  been  done  years  of 
work  may  yet  be  before  him.  Nor,  as  old  age  grows  upon  him,  will 
he  be  helpless.  He  can  still  do  odd  jobs.  He  is  in  receipt  of  an 
annuity  from  the  benefit  society.  He  is  not  likely  to  be  neglected 
"by  the  squire  or  the  parson.  "If  he  can  possibly  manage  it,"  says 
Mr.  Little,  "  he  now  contrives  to  put  a  trifle  by  for  the  decent  per- 
formance of  the  last  offices  connected  with  his  earthly  career;  but 
if  this  be  impracticable,  it  does  not  give  him  much  concern  that  the 
paiish  will  be  called  upon  to  pay  a  portion  of  these  expenses.  His 
wages  have  not  been  excessive,  and  if  his  old  employers  have  once 
more  to  put  their  hands  in  their  pockets  on  his  account,  it  is  only  a 
just  fulfillment  of  his  final  dues.  So,  not  without  a  touch  of  sardonic 
philosophy,  he  passes  away." 

Independently  of  his  comparative  indifference  to  much  that  is  to 
the  town  artisan  invested  with  paramount  interest,  there  are  sev- 
eral respects  in  which  the  country  working  man  differs  from  his 
urban  brother.  As  regards  house-room  and  lodging,  he  enjoys  the 
advantage  conferred  by  the  quit-rent  system  of  staying  on  in  his 


THE    /  NG    CLASSES.  H'.t 

cottage  while  lie  is  out  of  work,  and  of  thus  ga  an  interval  for 

looking  about  him.     The  village  fair,  or  harvest-home  festival,  or 
benefit  feast,  are  the  chief  breaks  in  the  continual  routine  of  \. 

Cricket  clubs  and  football  clubs  are,  indeed,  increasing  in  mn 
and  popularity,  but  these  are  pastimes  which  are  qoI  carried  on 
much  after  early  manhood.  He  differs,  also,  from  the  town  work- 
man in  knowing  less  of  the  pleasures  of  the  regular  holidays.  Of 
the  Saturday  half-holiday  of  town  workers  he  knows  little  or  noth- 
ing. Sunday,  indeed,  is  with  the  peasant  emphatically  a  day  of  rest. 
He  may  or  he  may  not  go  to  church  or  chapel,  arrayed  in  solemn 
black,  or  else  iu  a  waistcoat  and  necktie  of  gorgeous  colors;  but 
whether  he  performs  or  neglects  this  duty,  he  will  sedulously  refrain 
from  all  kinds  of  occupation — unless  he  is  employed  in  connection 
with  the  live  stock — and  if  he  saunters  about  Avill  remain  all  day 
within  a  stone's  throw  of  his  cottage. 

If  the  majority  of  English  rural  villages  have  as  their  inhabitants 
a  laboring  population  such  as  that  of  which  a  specimen  has  just  been 
given,  and  if  these  workers  for  the  most  part  conform  to  the  type 
that  we  have  delineated,  there  are  certain  exceptions  in  the  English 
village  system,  certain  stock  deviations  in  individual  character  from 
the  normal  standard,  which  may  be  briefly  glanced  at.  In  many 
English  villages  there  may  be  found  groups  of  cottages  which  con- 
stitute a  settlement  of  some  distinct  class,  or  aggregate  of  families, 
that  have  lived  on  there  from  generation  to  generation,  and  of  whose 
legal  claim  to  the  spot  nothing  is  known.  It  is  a  sort  of  no-man's- 
land,  and  the  human  beings  who  have  fixed  themselves  upon  it  lead 
an  anomalous,  precarious,  and  rather  predatory  life.  They  work  for 
the  farmers  during  the  hay  and  wheat  harvest,  but  for  the  rest  of 
the  year  they  subsist  visibly  on  the  produce  of  their  not  too  well 
tended  gardens.  Iu  reality,  they  must  have  other  resources  than 
these.  The  men  of  the  settlement  are  more  than  suspected  of  h 
habitual  poachers,  and  the  women  and  children  have  the  stigma  rest- 
ing on  them  of  being  systematic  practitioners  of  various  kinds  of 
petty  larceny.  Even  if  it  cannot  boast  the  presence  of  these  abo- 
riginal squatters,  the  English  village  is  seldom  without  some  sp. 
characteristics  of  its  own.  Thus,  in  addition  to  the  chronic  drunk- 
ard who  already  shows  signs  of  softening  of  the  brain,  there  may 
almost  always  be  found  among  the  population  the  clever,  active 
laborer,  who,  after  having  worked  with  great  regularity  and  sic -cess 
for  weeks  together,  has  a  fit  of  drinking,  and  disappears  for  two  or 
three  days. 

Then  there  is  usually  to  be  found  the  incorrigible  of  the 


180  ENGLAND. 

community,  who  never  did  an  honest  day's  work  in  his  life,  whom 
farmers  would  be  reluctant  to  employ,  who  is  an  abomination  to  the 
squire,  and  who  is  even  considered  past  reclamation  by  the  parson. 
The  more  reputable  village  inn  closes  its  door  against  him,  but 
there  is  a  low  beer-house — a  sink  of  mischief  and  of  iniquity — of 
which  he  is  a  regular  customer.  He  could  tell  how  the  landlord 
of  that  establishment  contrived  to  get  so  many  luxuries — fish,  flesh, 
fowl,  and  vegetable — into  the  filthy  back-kitchen  of  the  den,  sempi- 
ternallv  reeking  with  the  fumes  of  bad  drink  and  vile  tobacco.  He 
is  seldom  to  be  seen  abroad  in  the  village  in  the  full  light  of  dav, 
but  he  prowls  about  at  nightfall,  as  if  bent  upon  some  sinister  pur- 
pose. He  is  a  master  in  the  art  of  tickling  trout,  and  of  snaring 
pheasants;  he  is,  in  fact,  the  recognized  village  poacher,  who  has 
hitherto  by  marvellous  good  luck  escaped  the  clutch  of  the  law. 
Justice,  however,  overtakes  him  at  last,  or  if  it  fails  to  overtake  him 
in  the  village  whose  pest  he  is,  it  is  only  because  he  shuns  its  ap- 
proach, and  contrives  to  flee  while  yet  there  is  time. 

We  have  already  noted  in  the  dress  of  the  men  and  children 
of  rural  England  the  abandonment  of  the  distinctly  agricultural  garb. 
Something  even  more  noticeable  still  is  the  change  which  has  taken 
place  in  the  dress  of  the  women.  Even  in  those  parts  of  England 
where,  as  in  Northumberland,  much  out-door  labor,  especially  in 
the  fields  during  harvest-time,  is  done  by  mothers  and  daughters, 
the  clothes  worn  approximate  with  remarkable  closeness  to  the  pre- 
vailing urban  fashion  of  the  period.  Dress  and  musical  airs  seem 
to  travel  only  a  little  less  quickly  than  ill  tidings.  The  new  ditties 
which  the  pantomimes  popularize  in  London  are  dispersed  through- 
out the  provinces  by  itinerant  organ-grinders  before  many  months 
or  weeks  are  over.  It  is  the  same  with  feminine  apparel.  The  last 
new  mode  finds  its  way  to  the  neighboring  market  town  very  nearly 
at  the  same  time  that  it  does  to  the  capital  of  the  empire ;  and  cheap 
bonnets  of  the  latest  shape,  or  ribbons  of  the  approved  tint,  are  dis- 
]  ?layed  in  the  window  of  the  village  shop  a  very  little  while  after 
they  have  been  first  exposed  to  the  view  of  the  buyers  of  Regent 
Street. 

Nor  is  the  village  shop  the  only  emporium  of  these  goods.  A 
conspicuous  and  salutary  innovation  in  the  economy  of  English  vil- 
lages in  the  course  of  the  last  few  years  has  been  the  co-operative 
store.  Rather  more  than  a  decade  since,  a  certain  small  village  in 
the  midland  counties,  which  will  serve  as  a  type  of  many  others 
placed  in  similar  circumstances,  made  a  sudden  jump  towards  pros- 
perity.    A  hosiery  manufactory  was  started;  it  was  a  success,  and 


) 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  \%\ 

gave  profitable  employment  to  wives  and  children  of  the  tillers  of 
the  soil.     There  was  plenty  of  money  to  spend,  hut  the  shops  in  i 
village  were  justly  deemed  not  quite  satisfactory.     The  place  \\ 
fortunate  in  the  possession  of  a  clergyman  who  had  a  strong  idea  of 
reducing  the  rules  of  Christianity  to  practice  and  who  was  ;: 
man  of  business  into  the  bargain.     He  took  counsel  with  the  fa: 
of  the  place,  offered  a  few  suggestions  to  the  laborers  and  factory  ' 
hands,  and  as  a  result  of  those  deliberations  and  preparatory  m< 

ures,  A Industrial  and  Provident  Society  (Limited)  was  found* 

and  duly  certified  by  the  Registrar  of  Friendly  Societies  of  England 
as  having  rules  which  were  in  conformity  with  the  law.  The  capital 
of  the  society  was  raised  in  £1  shares,  to  which  each  member  sub- 
scribed at  the  rate  of  threepence  per  week,  or  3s.  6d.  a  quarter,  until 
the  whole  sum  was  paid  up.  The  business  is  carried  on  under  the 
control  of  a  committee  of  management  of  nine  persons,  a  treasurer, 
a  secretary,  two  auditors,  and  five  arbitrators.  It  is  conducted  on 
the  most  rigid  of  read3'-money  principles.  The  accounts  are  ren- 
dered and  audited  each  quarter-day.  Some  idea  of  its  early  prog- 
ress may  be  formed  from  the  statement  that  the  society  began  busi- 
ness with  thirty-three  members,  and  a  paid-up  capital  of  £27  2s. 
At  the  first  quarterly  meeting  it  consisted  of  twelve  stockingers, 
thirteen  agricultural  laborers,  one  lock-keeper,  one  carpenter,  one 
carrier,  one  brickmaker,  one  hawker,  one  retired  tradesman,  two 
farmers,  and  two  clergymen.  It  boasted  already  a  disposable  bal- 
ance of  £3  4s.  4d.  Seven  years  later  the  society  numbered  ninety- 
one  members — amongst  them  twent}r-four  agricultural  laborers,  of 
whom  two  were  the  largest  investors  in  the  funds  of  the  institution. 
The  goods  in  stock  were  estimated  at  £216;  £180  was  invested  at 
interest;  there  was  a  balance  in  the  bank  of  £105;  and  every  day  the 
clergyman  of  the  parish  was  receiving  small  sums  from  his  parish- 
ioners to  invest  in  the  association.  Of  course  the  plant  of  the  so- 
ciety had  increased  in  value.  A  cottage  adjoining  the  original 
warehouse  had  been  annexed  for  the  purpose  of  additional  storage. 
Seven  acres  of  land  were  rented,  and  also  a  barn,  where  the  cr<  i 
were  threshed.  All  the  necessaries,  and  some  of  the  luxuries,  of 
existence  are  for  sale  on  this  establishment,  which  is  as  much  a 
feature  in  the  village  as  the  school:  groceries,  bread,  butter,  hosi<  ■ 
haberdashery,  stationery,  drugs  of  all  kinds,  tobacco,  and  beer.  The 
sale  of  ale  was  considered  an  experiment  of  doubtful  value.  It  b 
proved  an  entire  success.  It  has  been  accompanied  by  a  marked 
diminution  of  drunkenness,  and  by  the  disappearance  of  the  last 
remnants  of  the  truck  system. 


182  ENGLAND. 

This  is  only  one  instance  of  the  new  spirit  which  has  so  largely 
reformed  and  quickened  the  life  of  the  country  working  man.  En- 
ter his  house  and  you  will  see  the  aesthetic  tendencies  of  the  age 
illustrated  in  the  decorations  of  his  dwelling.  There  are  familiar 
and  sometimes  graceful  chromo-lithographs  on  the  walls,  there  are 
ornaments  on  the  mantel-piece,  though  very  often  these  latter  are 
of  a  far  worse  design,  more  vulgar  in  idea  and  tawdry  of  color  than 
they  used  to  be.  Books  are  not  wanting,  nor  newspapers  either; 
and,  indeed,  the  extensive  circulation  of  the  daily  and  weekly  news- 
sheets  among  the  rural  laborers  of  England  is  one  of  the  signs  of 
the  times.  It  is  no  longer  the  rector  of  the  parish,  the  squire,  and 
the  more  important  farmers,  who  receive  daily  the  contemporary 
history  of  the  world  as  recorded  in  the  columns  of  the  London  or 
the  larger  provincial  newspapers.  These  make  their  way  into  the 
smaller  farmhouses  and  the  wayside  inns.  Means  for  then*  distri- 
bution have  multiplied  immensely  during  the  last  few  years.  The 
milk-carts,  which  make  a  journey  twice  in  every  twenty-four  hours 
to  the  local  town,  are  often  called  into  requisition;  and  there  is  the 
parcel  from  the  London  agent,  either  dropped  at  the  remote  rural 
railway  station,  or,  if  there  be  no  station  in  the  neighborhood, 
thrown  out  of  the  window  of  the  train  as  it  flies  past,  by  the  guard, 
at  some  fixed  spot.  It  is  no  mere  speculative  interest  in  cur- 
rent events  which  has  popularized  the  growth  of  journalism  in  the 
homes  of  the  country  poor.  What  chiefly  interests  the  agricultural 
student  of  the  hebdomadal  press  is  that  which-  seems  specially  to 
affect  his  personal  condition.  He  would  sooner  have  a  smart  attack 
on  the  policy  of  the  Poor  Law  Guardians  of  his  district  than  a 
slashing  criticism  on  the  conduct  of  diplomatic  negotiations  of  in- 
calculable moment.  Similarly  his  literary  appetite  is  whetted  by  a 
desire  to  know  all  that  concerns  the  position  and  the  prospects  of 
his  own  industry.  The  agitation  of  labor  versus  capital  has  invested 
the  columns  of  the  newspaper  with  a  fresh  attraction,  and  the  coun- 
try working  man  is  beginning  to  find  a  satisfaction  in  reading  of 
emigrants  and  emigration,  scarcely  second  to  that  which  he  might 
formerly  have  experienced  in  sensational  reports  of  accidents  and 
crimes.  Book-hawking  societies  are  another  agency  to  which  a 
word  of  grateful  recognition  is  due.  Once  these  are  established 
on  a  broad  basis  they  often  flourish  admirably  with  very  little  elee- 
mosynary help. 

In  all  this  may  be  seen  progress  beneficent,  considerable,  and 
well  defined,  in  the  condition  of  the  agricultural  laborer.  But  there 
are  evils  which  have  no  more  ceased  to  be  his  lot  than  misery,  sin, 


r 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  Is:' 

want,  starvation,  and  disease  have  died  out  of  the  land.  Granted 
that  legislation  has  done  something  thai  the  measures  which  fol- 
lowed upon  the  inquiry  of  the  Agricultural  Commission  of  1867,  the 
Truck  Acts,  and  modern  sanitary  laws,  have  provided  ;i  machinery 
for  ameliorating  the  condition  of  the  rural  laborer,  againsl  which 
there  is,  from  a  theoretical  point  of  view,  nothing  to  he  said;  how, 
it  may  he  asked,  does  the  machinery  work  ?  Because  the  lab 
children  helow  a  certain  age,  and  without  a  certificate  thai  11:  ;.  have 
satisfied  a  fixed  educational  standard,  is  forbidden,  dors  it  fch  r  I  »re 
follow  that  no  such  children  are  employed?  Because  there  is  no 
corner  of  England  which  is  not  subject  to  a  recognized  authority, 
is  our  worship  of  the  goddess  Hygeia  a  universal  act  of  pra  Heal 
homage  ?  If  some  landlords  would  no  sooner  tolerate  the  existence 
of  the  causes  of  pestilence  in  the  homes  of  their  poor  than  they  would 
a  public  nuisance  in  then*  own  parks,  are  we  therefore  to  conclude 
that  the  Arcadian  glimpses  given  above  of  the  laborer's  cottage  are 
typically  faithful  revelations  of  the  average  state  of  its  interior? 
The  true  answer  to  these  questions  is  that  the  tendency  of  the  tunes 
is  in  the  direction  of  social  and  sanitary  reform.  What  is  now  gen- 
erally wanted  on  the  large  estates  is  not  so  much  an  improvement 
in  the  kind  of  cottages  as  an  increase  of  their  number.  It  was  one 
of  the  hardships  of  the  rural  laborer  that  he  had  a  considerable 
distance  to  walk  to  his  work.  Houses,  therefore,  have,  in  many 
cases,  been  built  on  the  spot  or  near  the  farmstead.  The  laborers 
now  frequently  object  to  live  in  them,  and  prefer  the  independence 
and  sociability  of  the  village.  They  dislike  the  rules  of  the  < 
which  prohibit  lodgers  overcrowding,  and  which  insist  on  the  venti- 
lators being  kept  open.  The  women  complain  of  solitude — -they  are 
not  near  enough  to  the  shop ;  the  men  of  dullness — the}-  are  too  far 
from  the  public-house.  The  report  of  the  Commission  of  18G7  made 
it  tolerably  clear  that  the  habit  of  letting  cottages  in  connection  with 
the  farms  was  decidedly  mischievous  in  its  operation.  "I  am  clearly 
of  opinion,"  says  the  Rev.  Lord  S.  Godolphin  Osborne,  "that  the 
landlord  shoxdd  hold  all  the  cottages  in  his  own  hands,  under  his 
own  direct  control."  "•In  all  my  inquiries,"  says  Mr.  Edward  Stan- 
hope, "on  this  point,  I  never  yet  met  a  man  who  preferred  to  live 
'under  a  farmer,'  as  they  call  it.  The  apparent  advantage  in  point 
of  income  enjoyed  by  a  man  in  Dorset  who  is  a  yearly  servant,  and 
lives  in  a  house  attached  to  the  farm,  is  great,  and  yet  even  there 
the  laborer  had  the  strongest  objection  to  the  system.  With  great 
reluctance  I  have  been  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  tin  re  is  no 
system  more  fatal  to  the  independence  and  comfort  of  laborers  than 


184  ENGLAND. 

that  of  letting  cottages  with  the  farms."  On  the  other  hand  it  would 
scarcely  do  to  make  the  occupancy  of  the  cottages  entirely  independ- 
ent of  the  tenure  of  the  farm,  and  the  farmer  would  certainty  find  it 
highly  inconvenient  to  have  men  living  on  his  premises  who  were 
not  working  for  him.  Substantial  as  are  the  improvements  which 
have  taken  place  in  the  condition  of  the  cottages  of  the  agricultural 
laborers  since  the  Commission  of  18G7  concluded  its  investigations, 
the  report  of  that  body  is  not  yet  an  entirely  obsolete  document. 
The  first  great  defect  in  the  cottages  of  rural  England  is  now,  as  it 
was  then,  the  absence  of  proper  bedroom  accommodation.  Many  of 
these  houses  contain  only  one  sleeping-room;  more,  only  two.  In  a 
village  of  the  midland  counties,  the  writer  has  himself  become  cog- 
nizant of  the  fact  of  there  being  crowded  nightly  into  a  single  sleep- 
ing-room the  mother — a  widow — a  young  man  of  nineteen,  her  son, 
her  daughter,  and  the  illegitimate  child  of  the  latter.  Frequently, 
the  site  chosen  for  the  cottage  is  some  damp,  marshy  place ;  or  the 
building  is  erected  with  its  back  hard  against  a  hill,  or  on  ground 
probably  a  foot  or  two  below  the  surface  of  the  surrounding  soil, 
and  without  any  attempt  at  drainage  or  ventilation.  Nor  is  a  less 
dire  evil  to  be  seen  in  the  pollution  of  the  atmosphere  outside  the 
doors,  not  so  much  or  necessarily  because  the  drainage  is  defective 
as  because  the  women  are  unable  to  see  that  there  is  any  harm  in 
permitting  heaps  of  rotting  vegetables  and  other  refuse  to  accum- 
ulate in  the  little  garden;  generally,  indeed,  the  English  working 
classes  in  agricultural  districts  have  not  the  slightest  knowledge  of 
the  most  elementary  laws  of  health,  and  if  education  in  these  was 
included  in  the  course  of  the  village  school  a  good  work  would 
be  done. 

Of  course,  existing  sanitary  laws  ought  to  prevent  much  of  this. 
But  the  difficulty  of  enforcing  them  is  extreme,  and  their  full  execu- 
tion would  often  invoke  wholesale  eviction.  Nor  would  the  cost  of 
eviction  end  where  it  began.  There  is  a  clause  in  the  Sanitary  Act 
empowering  the  shutting  up  of  cottages  in  the  outskirts  of  a  town. 
If  acted  upon,  the  clause  would  result  in  the  overcrowding  of  houses 
in  towns,  for  the  legislation  has  this  further  deficiency,  that  it  does 
not  authorize  the  building  of  fresh  houses  in  the  place  of  those 
which  are  practically  demolished.  A  great  complaint  against  the 
Act  is  that  there  is  nothing  to  set  in  motion,  and  hence  it  has  been 
compared  to  "  a  watch  without  a  mainspring."  Dr.  Eraser,  Bishop 
of  Manchester,  one  of  the  Commissioners  of  Agriculture  in  1867, 
remarked,  "  The  existing  Sanitary  Act  is  quite  ineffective,  owing  to 
the  local  influence  by  which  it  is  hampered,"  and  suggested  the 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  Is.", 

appointment  of  an  independent  officer  like  an  exciseman  Thai  the 
Act  should  have  failed,  maybe  accounted  for  in  a  greaj   d  by 

the  fact  that  the  authorities  are  elected  by  the  ratepayers  and  the 

representatives  of  ratepayers,  who  are  for  the  most  part  busy  men. 
No  doubt,  a  farther  extension  of  State  action  has  evils,  and  tends 
towards  pauperization.  But  if  there  is  no  reason  why  Boards  of 
Guardians  should  not  be  empowered  to  pay  the  school  fe<  8  of  >  hil- 
dren  whose  parents  are  helplessly  poor,  and  if  the  receipt  of  such 
assistance  does  not  constitute  pauperism,  why  should  it  be  stigma- 
tized as  "  pauperization  "  if  a  man  receive  State  aid  in  order  to  make 
his  house  habitable  by  his  family  ? 

The  consequences  of  such  a  state  of  things — of  which  the  end  lias 
yet  to  be  seen — are  from  a  physical,  social,  economical,  moral,  or  in- 
tellectual point  of  view,  equally  disastrous.  "Physically,"  to  quote 
Dr.  Fraser's  report,  "  a  ruinous,  ill-drained,  overcrowded  cottage 
generates  any  amount  of  disease,  as  well  as  intensifies  tendency  to 
scrofula  and  phthisis.  Socially,  nothing  can  be  more  wretched  than 
the  condition  of  "  open  "  parishes,  into  which  have  been  poured  re- 
morselessly the  scum  and  off-scour  of  their  "close"*  neighbors. 
Economically,  the  impei'fect  distribution  of  cottages  deprives  the 
farmer  of  a  large  portion  of  his  effective  labor-power.  The  em- 
ployer who  has  no  cottages  to  offer  those  whom  he  employs  must 
either  attract  laborers  by  the  offer  of  higher  wages,  or  must  content 
himself  with  refuse."  Morally,  what  is  to  be  expected  but  that,  as 
Dr.  Fraser  writes,  "  modesty  must  be  an  unknown  virtue,  decency 
an  unimaginable  thing,  where  in  one  small  chamber,  with  the  bids 
lying  as  thickly  as  they  can  be  packed,  father,  mother,  young  m<  n, 
lads,  grown-up  girls — two  and  sometimes  three  generations — are 
herded  promiscuously.  "We  complain,"  continues  the  report,  "of 
the  ante-nuptial  unchastity  of  our  women,  of  the  loose  talk  and  con- 
duct of  the  girls  who  work  in  the  fields,  of  the  light  way  in  which 
maidens  part  with  their  honor,  and  how  seldom  either  a  |  or 

a  brother's  blood  boils  with  shame — here,  in  cottage  herding,  is  the 
sufficient  account  and  history  of  all." 

*  One  of  the  consequences  of  the  new  Poor  Law  has  been  that  the  di 
tion  between  close  and  open  villages  has  to  a  great  extent  disappeared.     Vil- 
lages are  called  close  when  they  arc  the  exclusive  property  of  a  single 
open,  when  there  is  a  plurality  of  ownership.     Under  the  old  J 
every  village  was  charged  with  the  support  of  its  own  poor,  the  landlord  bad 
naturally  an  object  in  admitting  as  few  potential  paupers  into  his  villagi 
possible,  and,  therefore,  kept  down  the  number  of  his  cottages,  but  after,  by 
Act  of  1834,  the  support  of  the  poor  was  charged  upon  Union  areas,  the  motive 
for  the  preservation  of  the  close  village  system  disappeared. 


18G  ENGLAND. 

That  many  of  these  evils  still  exist — are  likely,  for  the  matter  of 
that  to  exist  for  a  long  while — amongst  us  must  be  admitted.  But 
there  is  a  reverse  side  to  the  picture,  which  has  been  indicated  at 
the  beginning  of  the  present  chapter,  and  which  is  equally  historic 
fact.  It  may  be  that  more  legislation  is  wanted;  it  may  be  that  the 
action  of  the  legislation  which  at  present  exists  is  not  as  certain  or 
speedy  as  could  be  desired.  But,  for  all  that,  there  is  movement, 
and  that  movement  is  pre-eminently  in  the  right  direction.  The  low 
mud  and  straw-thatched  tenement,  with  its  two  rooms  on  the  ground 
floor,  has  to  a  very  great  extent  disappeared.  The  responsibilities 
of  proprietorship  have  been  recognized,  and  the  very  circumstance 
that  the  possession  of  land  in  England  is  valued  quite  as  much  for 
the  power  it  confers  as  for  the  revenue  which  it  yields — "  almost  in 
all  cases,"  as  Mr.  Little  remarks,  "  a  very  poor  return  upon  the  cap- 
ital invested " — is  a  favorable  influence.  Landlords  are,  for  the 
most  part,  ambitious  of  the  reputation  of  having  good  cottages  on 
their  estate,  and  the  rivalry  of  the  landlords  is  reflected  in  the  com- 
petition of  their  agents.  Nor  is  it  less  fortunate,  from  this  point  of 
view,  that  properties  have  gradually  passed,  and  are  still  passing, 
out  of  the  hands  of  impoverished  landlords  into  those  of  the  owners 
of  estates  which  are  principalities,  or  into  the  hands  of  the  wealthy 
members  of  the  mercantile  community.  Again,  if  it  be  admitted 
that  the  law  is  still  short  of  what  it  ought  to  be,  we  must  remember 
that  indirectly  it  has  done  much.  The  abolition  of  the  old  Poor 
Law,  and  its  replacement  by  a  system  under  which  the  landlord  is  no 
longer  only  charged  with  the  relief  of  the  poor  in  his  own  village — 
no  longer  obtains  a  portion  of  his  rental  at  the  expense  of  his 
neighbors — has  convinced  him  of  the  expediency  of  generally  im- 
proving their  state. 

But  it  must  be  remembered  that,  valuable  as  the  reform  is,  it  is 
not  necessarily  an  unalloyed  benefit  to  the  agricultural  poor.  It  is 
a  great  thing  that  the  peasant  should  inhabit  a  commodious,  com- 
fortable building  of  brick  and  slate,  consisting  of  kitchen,  parlor, 
and  pantry  on  the  ground  floor,  and  three  well-ventilated  bedrooms 
above,  instead  of  the  mud  hovels  of  old,  with  then*  two  rooms  not 
removed  above  the  level  of  the  soil.  The  cost,  however,  of  such  a 
structure  as  this  is  not  much,  if  at  all,  less  than  £280;  and,  seeing 
that  the  rental  is  not  more  than  £5  a  year,  it  is  obvious  that  the  owner 
is  left  with  a  loss.  If  he  is  to  make  the  loss  good,  he  must  recoup 
himself  out  of  the  rent  paid  by  the  farmer;  and  the  advantage  con- 
ferred upon  the  latter  is  represented  by  the  fact  that  he  has  hia 
laborer  close  to  his  farm,  and  in  good  health  instead  of  in  bad. 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  187 

Let  us  now  quit  the  actual  dwelling  of  the  agricultural  laborer, 
and  see  how  he  is  situated  immediately  outside  it.  We  have  already 
watched  him  engaged  m  the  cultivation  of  h  Leu  or  allotment, 

or  else  in  gazing  on  it  on  Sunday  afternoon.  At  once  if  must  be 
said  that,  as  regards  the  relative  value  to  the  peasant  of  gardens 
and  allotments,  some  difference  of  opinion  exists.  With  a  garden 
of  thirty  roods  of  ordinary  land,  it  was  decidi  dlj  the  opinion  of  Hi 
Bishop  of  Manchester,  when  a  member  of  the  Agricultural  Commis- 
sion of  18G7,  that  a  laborer  would  scarcely  care  about  an  all 
probably  at  some  distance  from  his  cottage.  The  garden,  he  points 
out,  is  close  under  his  eye,  and  can  occupy  many  spare  ten  minutes 
of  the  man's  time.  It  is  easily  manured,  and  "there  is  a  reciprocal 
and  a  beneficial  connection  between  it  and  the  sty:  the  garden  half 
keeps  the  pig,  and  the  pig  in  turn  more  than  half  keeps  the  garden." 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  beyond  question  that  the  allotment  system 
is  one  which  has  proved  full  of  benefit,  and  especially  in  particular 
districts.  In  Dorsetshire,  where  wages  have  been  exceptionally  low, 
the  laborers  occupy  an  amount  of  land  which  provides  employment 
for  the  whole  family.  "  The  redeeming  feature,"  says  Mr.  Stanhope, 
"of  rural  life  here  is  the  amount  of  land  held  by  the  laboring  el. 
indeed,  but  for  this  the  wages  would  sometimes  hardly  be  sufficient 
to  support  life."  One  thing  is  quite  certain,  that  if  extended  beyond 
a  limited  size,  allotments  are  the  source  of  danger  and  of  loss  to  the 
peasant,  and  practically  create  the  evil  which  they  are  designed  to 
remedy.  In  some  parts  of  England,  what  is  known  as  Fergus 
O'Connor's  Act  is  still  operative.  Where  this  is  the  case — as,  for 
instance,  in  the  west  of  England,  near  Yeovil — there  may  be  seen  a 
row  of  some  half-dozen  cottages,  each  with  two  or  three  acres  of 
land  attached.  These  were  designed  for  the  beneiit  of  the  agricul- 
tural laborer.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  were  almost  all  occupied 
by  small  tradesmen.  If  the  allotment  be  just  big  enough  to  take  up 
a  man's  odd  time,  it  will  be  an  immense  boon;  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  devotes  hiinself  entirely  to  it,  he  may  prosper  for  a  season,  but 
he  will  find  that  in  the  long  run  he  cannot  hold  his  own,  and  he  will 
feel  acutely  the  want  of  the  weekly  wage,  paid  more  or  less  regu- 
larly every  Saturday.  When  it  is  talked  about  creating  a  race  of 
peasant  proprietors,  such  as  those  who  exist  in  France,  it  is  forgot- 
ten or  ignored  that  the  English  peasant  is  not  like  the  French  peas- 
I  ant,  has  not  the  same  innate  faculty  of  thrift,  cannot  live  on  the  ss 
simple,  unsubstantial  fare.  The  land,  too,  if  it  is  to  be  made  \ 
requires  to  be  manured,  and  the  laborer  is  not  in  a  position  to  ] 
sess  himself  of  this  mode  of  artificial  fertilization.     Again,  in   the 


188  ENGLAND. 

case  of  a  miniature  farm  of  two  or  three  acres,  no  provision  can  be 
made  for  the  necessary  alternation  of  crops;  consequently  the  land 
is  exhausted,  while  even  if  the  cottager  succeed  in  growing  upon  it 
a  pretty  regular  supply  of  vegetables,  he  will  find  it  impossible  to 
guarantee  a  sufficiency  of  regular  customers.  The  only  way  in 
which,  as  experience  shows,  the  laborer  who  looks  to  live  entirely 
by  his  allotment  can  hope  to  be  successful  is  by  having  his  home  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood  of  some  town,  where  he  can  sell  his 
produce  and  command  a  tolerably  regular  succession  of  gardens  to 
look  after,  carpets  to  beat,  and  odd  jobs  to  do. 

There  remain  to  be  considered  various  other  circumstances  to  a 
great  extent  affecting  the  condition  of  the  agricultural  laborer.  The 
consideration  of  then*  waives  mav  be  reserved  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter,  while  of  the  mode  of  their  payment  only  a  few  words  need 
be  said.  In  Northumberland  they  are  paid  in  kind.  Generally 
laborers  are  unwilling  to  forego  their  privilege  of  taking  part  of 
wages  in  beer  and  cider.  The  following  anecdote  illustrates  the 
dominion  which  drink  can  thus  obtain  over  a  man's  mind.  A  la- 
borer having  earned  at  a  piece  of  task-work  a  considerable  sum  of 
money,  left  off  for  several  days,  and  during  that  time  was  incessantly 
drinking.  One  morning,  when  all  his  money  had  been  expended, 
he  set  off -to  resume  his  work  at  a  distance  of  three  miles  from  his 
home.  On  reaching  the  place,  he  took  off  his  coat  and  threw  it  on 
the  ground,  but  as  it  fell,  a  forgotten  sixpence  dropped  out  of  his 
pocket,  upon  which  he  put  it  on  again,  and  walked  back  the  three 
miles  to  finish  the  sixpence  before  he  would  begin  work. 

Though  it  is  to  secondarv  remedies  such  as  a  keener  sense  of 
self-interest,  and  to  the  creation  of  a  public  feeling  unfavorable  to 
the  vice,  that  we  must  look  for  the  ultimate  and  sole  effective 
guarantee  against  drunkenness,  there  are  certain  primary  meas- 
ures which  might  obviously  be  tried.  Again  and  again  has  it  been 
pointed  out  that  public-houses  are  apparently  allowed  to  multiply 
far  beyond  the  legitimate  needs  of  the  community.  The  police 
state  that  those  licensed  under  the  new  system,  i.  e.,  where  beer 
cannot  be  drunk  on  the  premises,  are  worse  to  deal  with  than  those 
where  customers  can  go  in  and  drink.  Much  may  be  said  in  favor 
of  giving  the  licensing  power  to  the  magistrates.  If  it  continues  to 
reside  with  the  Excise,  the  standard  of  the  cpialifications  in  the  rate- 
payers who  sign  the  petition  for  the  license  might  be  raised  till  it 
was  something  like  a  guarantee  of  character.  Meanwhile  it  may  be 
well  to  point  out  that^the  farmers  themselves,  much  as  they  condemn 
the  beer -house  system,  are  apt  in  their  good  nature  to  encourage  in 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  [gg 

their  men  a  taste  for  liquor,  by  remunerating  extra  j<>l>s  in  drink; 
supplementing  wages  by  beer  and  cider.     Women  and  the  ordinary 
day-laborer  are  liired  by  the  day,  and  generally  paid  once  a  w< 
The  rate  of  wages  of  women  is  usually  fixed  by  the  daw  bui  of  the 
men,  when  employed  on  day-work,  at  so  much  per  week.     The  lib- 
eral class  of  farmers  feel  themselves  bound  to  find  their  nun  work, 
"wet  or  dry,"  but  there  is  another  class  of  farmers  of,  as  Dr.  Fraser 
puts  it  in  his  report,  "harder  natures  and  tighter  purse-strm 
who  will  send  a  laborer  away  on  a  wet  morning,  it'  there  happ< 
to  be  no  directly  remunerative  job  which  they  can  set  him  to  do. 
If  a  laborer  is  liired  by  the  week,  it  is  clearly  reasonable  that  work 
by  the  week  should  be  found  him.     The  system  of  monthly  hiring 
is  confined  to  the  solitary  instance  of  the  harvest.     Those  who  are 
emphatically  called  farm  servants — that  is,  laborers  without  whose 
services  the  farm  could  not  be  carried  on  for  a  single  day;  Bhepherd, 
carter,  stockman,  plowboy,  and  dairymaid — are  hired  for  the  D 
part  by  the  year.     The  usual  periods  of  "hirings"  are  in  the  spring, 
or  more  commonly  in  the  autumn,  and  where  th(  iminations 

exist  the  transaction  takes  place  at  the  "mop"  or  "statute  fair." 
The  agreements  are  generally  verbal,  "but  what  weighs  most  in  the 
mind  of  the  farm  recruit  ....  is  the  mystical  shilling  which 
passes  from  the  palm  of  his  new  master  into  his  own,  which  may 
be  regarded  as  the  agricultural  sacramentum."  These  yearly  hirings 
operate  badly.  The  "statute  fan"  which  is  one  of  their  accompani- 
ments is  a  demoralizing  institution,  and  one,  happily,  which,  though 
it  flourishes  still  in  a  few  districts,  may  be  generally  described  a, 
dving  out. 

A  child's  day  and  a  woman's  day  are  much  the  same:  nine  hours, 
with  an  hour  and  a  half  for  meals.     The  almost  unanimous  opin 
of  the  laboring  man  is,  that  if  the  parents  can  manage  to  dispense 
with  his  earnings,  a  boy  should  not  go  out  to  work  before  twelve  or 
thirteen.     Medical  opinion,  however,  is  not  generally  favorable  to 
the  employment  of  child-labor  in  agricirlture.     To  expose  a  hoy  <>{ 
ten  or  twelve  years  of  age  for  twelve  hours  a  day  to  the  cutt 
English  winds  is  pronounced  by  competent  medical  aut  I 
sure  to  develop  the  seeds  of  any  disease  that  may  be  latent  in  : 
constitution.     In  some  parts  of  England,  notably  in    Dorsetshire, 
the  system  of  hiring  whole  families  prevails.*     In  these  eas<  s,  when 

*  The  following  advertisements  are  quoted  by  Mr.  Stanhope  from  the  J'    - 
Chester  County  Chronicle. 

(1)  Wanted,  a  farm  laborer,  with  a  working  family;  apply  to  Mr.  G.  '1 
Chiselbome. 


190  ENGLAND. 

a  laborer  is  hired  for  a  year,  the  size  of  his  family  and  the  vigor 
of  his  wife  and  children  are  all  points  carefully  investigated  by  the 
employer.  There  are  of  course  many  abuses  incident  to  the  em- 
ployment of  women  in  the  fields,  but  the  system  is  by  no  means 
one  on  which  an  unqualified  condemnation  can  be  jDassed.  Bishop 
Eraser  argues  that  it  not  only  unsexes  a  woman  in  dress,  manners, 
and  character,  making  her  masculine,  but  unfits  or  indisposes  her 
for  a  woman's  proper  duties  at  home.  Any  one,  however,  who  has 
visited  the  county  of  Northumberland,  who  has  seen  the  North- 
umbrian women  out  in  the  fields  and  by  their  own  firesides,  will 
scarcely  accept  this  view.  In  this  the  most  prosperous  of  English 
counties,  the  labor  of  women,  which  consists  of  clearing  the  land, 
picking  stones  and  weeding,  turnip-hoeing,  hay-making  and  harvest- 
work,  barn-work  with  threshing  and  winnowing  machines,  is  con- 
sidered absolutely  essential  for  the  cultivation  of  the  soil;  yet  the 
Northumbrian  women  are  physically  a  splendid  race.  Their  work 
in  the  fields  is  justly  considered  to  be  conducive  to  health.  "I 
shall  be  glad,"  writes  Mr.  Harley  of  those  who  hold  the  opinion  that 
field-work  is  degrading,  "  if  they  would  visit  these  women  in  their 
own  homes  after  they  become  wives  and  mothers.  They  would  be 
received  with  a  natural  courtesy  and  good  manners  which  would 
astonish  them.  Let  the  visitor  ask  to  see  the  house;  he  will  be 
taken  over'  it,  with  many  apologies  that  he  should  have  seen  it 
not  'redd  up.'  He  will  then  be  offered  a  chair  in  front  of  a  large 
fire,  with  the  never-absent  pot  and  oven,  the  mistress  meanwhile  con- 
tinuing her  unceasing  family  duties,  baking,  cooking,  cleaning,  etc. 
Not  one  word  of  complaint  will  he  hear;  but  he  will  be  told  that, 
though  'working  people,'  they  are  not  poor;  and  a  glance  at  the 
substantial  furniture,  the  ample  supply  of  bacon  over  his  head, 
the  variety  of  cakes  and  bread  on  the  board,  and  the  stores  of 
butter,  cheese,  and  meal  in  the  house,  will  convince  him  of  the  fact. 
When  he  inquires  about  the  children  he  will  hear  that,  though  they 
have  not  much  to  give  them,  the  parents  feel  it  to  be  their  sacred 
duty  to  secure  them  the  best  instruction  in  their  power,  and  '  that 
they  are  determined  they  shall  have.'  The  visitor  will  leave  that 
cottage  with  the  conviction  that  field-work  has  had  no  degrading 
effect,  but  that  he  has  been  in  the  presence  of  a  thoughtful,  con- 
tented,  and  unselfish  woman."     Dr.  Caliiil,  of  Berwick-on-Tweed, 

(2)  "Wanted,  a  shepherd,  with  a  grown-up  son  or  two;  apply  to  Mr.  G.  A. 
Ingram,  Bagber. 

(3)  Wanted  at  Lady-day,  a  thatcher,  with  two  or  three  boys  from  9  to  14 
years  of  age;  apply  to  Mr.  G.  Mayo,  Puddlehinton. 


THE    WORKING    C/./*S$fc^£FOR'S  VU 

states  "from  his  knowledge  of  the  town  and  country  population" 
that  "the  women  of  the  latter  are  far  more  health]  than  the  wo 

of  the  former,  and  tenfold  less  affected  by 

considers  that  their  field-work  fits  them  to  be  good  bearers  of  chil- 
dren, and  the  strength  of  the  population  is  kepi  up  by  them;  and 
that  the  surplus  of  the  agricultural  population  thai  rulers  the  I 
towns  maintains  the  standard  of  health  and  strength  by  marri 
with  the  inhabitants  of  towns." 

Having  thus  described  some  of  the  most  important  details  in  the 
condition  of  the  agricultural  classes,  it  remains  to  say  a  few  words 
on  the  general  relations  of  employers  and  employed,  and,  in  pi 
of  the  nature  of  our  agricultural  system.     What  arc  called  A.cts  of 
Husbandly  vary  in  different  parts  of  England,  according  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  soil.     Their  object  is  to  regulate  the  scale  on  which 
money  is  paid  to  the  outgoing  by  the  incoming  tenant  for  crops 
sown  and  for  work  and  labor  done.     In  all  parts  of  England  there  is 
a  regularly  prescribed  order  in  the  rotation  of  crops;  and  the 
era!  rule  is  that  arable  land  is  cultivated  in  the  proportion  of  one 
half  corn,  and  one  half  roots — thus:  first  year,  turnips;  second,  bar- 
ley; third,  mangel-wurzel;  fourth,  wheat.     It  is,  too,  the  univi 
custom,  and  may  be  spoken  of  as  the  foundation  of  English  agricul- 
ture, that  whatever  is  produced  on  the  farm,  and  is  available  for  the 
purpose  of  manuring  the  soil,  shall  be  devoted  to  the  soil.    As  might 
be  supposed,  this  development  of  agricultural  enterprise  implies  a 
series  of  striking  improvements  in  agricultural  processes.     There  is, 
indeed,  in  the  agricultural  system  of  the  England  of  to-day  almost 
as  little  of  what  one  can  identify  with  the  agriculture  of  a  century 
ago  as  with  that  of  the  ancient  Italians,  as  sung  by  Virgil  in  his 
Georgics.     The  farmer  who  succeeds  nowadays  is  scientific,  or  he 
is  nothing,  and  the  danger  rather  arises  from  his  staking  too  much 
capital  upon  the  ground  than  from  his  putting  into  it  too  little.    His 
farming  apparatus  bears  the  same  relation  to  that  of  his  predi 
as  do  the  floating  factories  known  as  ironclads  to  the  wooden  walls 
of  the  old-fashioned  men-of-war.     He  has  learnt  the  use  of  reaping 
and  mowing  machines,  each  of  which  can  do  the  work  of  ten 
of  steam  plows — costly  implements,  which  are  not  within  the  n 
of  smaller  farmers — which  do  the  labor  of  ten  men  a  >nty 

horses;  of  steam  machines  of  other  kinds  for  threshing  corn,  cut  ling 
straw  and  hay,  and  similar  purposes.     In  addition  to  these,  chi 
cal  assistance,  ammoniacal  and  phosphatk  manures,  have  rendered 
the  farmer  comparatively  independent  of  the  alternate  Q  of 

cropping;  and  Mr.  Caird  calculates  that  these  artific 


192  ENGLAND. 

agencies  would  enable  the  United  Kingdom  to  bear  an  additional 
wheat  crop  equal  to  our  supplies  froni  Russia,  with  no  perceptible 
strain  on  our  agricultural  system.  Nor  has  there  been  less  signal 
advance  made,  even  though  no  new  principle  has  been  discovered, 
in  the  matters  of  drainage,  the  construction  of  farm  buildings,  and 
the  breeding  of  stock.  The  system  may  be  upwards  of  half  a  cen- 
tury old,  but  its  extension  and  development  are  comparatively  new. 
One  of  the  popular  results  of  this  extension  is,  that  whereas  thirty 
years  ago  not  more  than  one  thud  of  the  people  consumed  animal 
food  more  than  once  a  week,  it  is  now  eaten  by  nearly  all  of  them, 
in  the  shape  of  meat,  or  cheese,  or  butter,  once  a  day.  Add  to  this 
the  increase  of  the  population,  and  it  may  be  estimated  that  the 
total  consumption  of  animal  food  in  this  country  has  trebled  in  the 
last  three  decades. 

The  total  area  of  Great  Britain  is  76,309,000  acres,  of  which 
26,300,000  consist  of  mountains,  pasture,  and  waste,  while  50,000,000 
are  crops,  meadows,  permanent  pasture,  and  woods  and  forests. 
Most  of  this  land  is  in  the  hands  of  the  large  landowners;  rather 
more  than  one  fifth  of  it,  representing  nearly  one  eleventh  of  its  an- 
nual income,  is  held  by  noblemen,  amounting  to  about  600  in  num- 
ber; one  fourth,  excluding  the  proprietors  of  less  than  an  acre,  is 
held  by  1,200  persons,  each  averaging  16,200  acres;  another  fourth 
by  6,200  persons,  at  an  average  of  3,150  acres;  another  fourth  by 
50,770,  at  an  average  of  380  acres;  whilst  the  remaining  fourth  is 
held  by  261,830  persons,  at  an  average  of  70  acres.  The  cultivation 
.  of  this  land  is  mainly  in  the  hands  of  the  tenant  farmers,  of  whom 
there  are  561,000  in  Great  Britain,  each  holding  an  average  of  56 
acres.  The  tendency  is  for  land  to  become  concentrated  in  the 
hands  of  large  landlords,  small  proprietors  being  bought  up.  Thus 
the  small  squire  is  becoming  gradually  extinct,  while  the  yeomen, 
or  small  landowners  farming  their  own  land,  have  almost  entirely 
disappeared.  How  rapidly  we  in  England  have  passed  from  an  agri- 
cultural to  a  manufacturing  people  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that 
whereas  fifty  years  ago  a  fifth  of  the  working  population  of  England 
was  engaged  in  agriculture,  those  now  occupied  in  this  manner  are 
less  than  a  tenth. 

We  have  already  seen  something  of  the  general  principles  on 
which  the  great  estates  of  the  country  are  managed.  The  agricul- 
tural hierarchy  may  be  said  to  consist  of  three — or,  if  we  count  the 
land-agent,  of  four — grades:  the  landlords  and  their  agents,  the 
farmers  and  their  laborers.  Each  of  these  classes  is  being  constant- 
ly altered  in  its  composition.     Landed  property,  to  the  value  of  sev- 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  103 

eral  millions,  changes  hands  annually,  the  tenants  of  farms  are 
changed  at  Lady-day  or  Michaelmas,  while  the  laborers  are  Ear 
more  locomotive  than  formerly,  and  are  perpetually  acquiring  the 
fresh  knowledge  that  urges  struggling  men  afar.  Large  drafts  of 
these  perpetually  pass  off  to  the  other  industrial  pursuits  of  the 
country,  and  to  the  colonies;  and  the  result  of  this  process  is  seen 
in  the  weakening  of  the  tie  between  the  agricultural  laborer  and  the 
parish  in  which  he  was  born. 

The  only  point  of  contact  between  the  State  and  our  agricul- 
tural system  is  the  In  closure  Office,  whose  chief  duty  is  now  to  im- 
prove suburban  commons  under  a  system  of  regulation  by  which  the 
land  may  be  drained,  planted  for  ornament  and  shelter,  and  the  sur- 
face be  improved  for  pasturage,  without  excluding  the  public  from 
its  enjoyment.  The  administration  of  the  Drainage  and  Land  Im- 
provement Acts  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Inclosure  Commissioners,  the 
object  of  these  Acts  being  to  permit  landowners  to  borrow  money 
for  permanent  improvements,  and  to  charge  their  lands  with  the 
cost  of  these,  to  be  liquidated  by  annual  payments  which,  within  a 
fixed  time,  reimburse  both  principal  and  interest.  Again,  the  Com- 
missioners are  authorized  to  carry  out  exchanges  and  partitions  of 
lands,  and  with  their  assistance  any  two  landowners  can  at  very  tri- 
fling expense  correct  whatever  irregularity  there  may  be  in  the 
boundary  of  their  respective  estates,  or  even  exchange  entire  prop- 
erties. The  conditions  upon  which  the  sanction  of  the  Commis- 
sioners is  obtained  are,  first,  that  the  exchange  shall  be  demonstra- 
tively beneficial  to  the  two  estates;  secondly,  that  the  exchange  shall 
be  fair  and  equal;  thirdly,  that  due  notice  is  given,  and  that  the 
order  of  exchange  is  not  confirmed  until  three  months  afterwards. 

If  it  be  considered  that  the  production  of  bread  and  meat  within 
these  islands  has  nearly  reached  its  limits,  the  dairy  and  market- 
garden  system  is,  on  the  other  hand,  extending.  The  country,  in 
fact,  is  becoming  less  of  a  farm  and  more  of  a  garden.  Meanwhile, 
the  population  is  increasing  at  the  rate  of  350,000  a  year,  or  nearly 
a  thousand  a  day.  The  consumption  of  food  is  becoming  prodig- 
ious, and  now  represents  imports  of  one  hundred  millions  sterling. 
Twenty  years  hence,  we  may  have  not  thirty  millions  but  forty  mil- 
lions of  people  to  feed,  and,  of  course,  there  will  have  been  a  pro- 
portionate increase  in  the  import  of  provisions.  Whether  and  in 
what  degree  the  advantage  of  being  on  the  spot  will  enable  the 
tenants  to  pay  the  imperial  and  local  charges  and  rent  to  the  owners, 
is  the  question  of  the  future.  The  importation  of  foreign  grain  fro]  i 
America,  and  in  a  less  degree  of  meat,  yearly  endangers  his  proiits. 
13 


194  ENGLAND. 

But  the  tenant  can  leave  his  farm  with  more  or  less  loss,  while  the 
landowner  must  remain  and  solve  the  question.  The  speculative 
remedy  proposed  for  the  loss  at  which  farmers  may  conduct  their 
operations  is  the  redistribution  of  the  soil,  and  the  creation  of  a  class 
of  small  proprietors.  Independently  of  the  fact  that  in  England  no 
overwhelming  desire  for  land  exists  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether 
its  advocates  themselves  are  persuaded  that  such  a  scheme  is  practi- 
cable. Thus  it  is  admitted  by  many  of  those  who  are  in  favor  of  it, 
that  it  would  be  necessary  for  tenants,  should  such  a  system  ever  be 
established,  to  co-operate  for  many  of  the  more  expensive  processes 
of  industry.  While  we  are  on  the  subject  of  the  general  relation  of 
landlords  and  tenants,  it  may  be  observed  that  though,  as  has  been 
pointed  out  in  the  chapter  on  estate  management,  the  same  method 
of  administration  is  generally  observed  both  in  the  properties  of 
individuals  and  of  corporations,  the  position  occupied  by  the  farmer 
is  not  precisely  the  same  in  each.  In  the  first  place  the  individual 
landlord,  be  he  a  great  peer  or  commoner,  looks  for  political  power, 
and  directly  or  indirectly  influences  the  votes  of  his  tenants  at  gen- 
eral elections;  corporations,  on  the  other  hand,  have  no  political 
influence,  and  the  farmer  who  rents  his  land  from  a  corporation  is 
conscious  of  a  certain  superiority  over  the  agriculturist  who  is  the 
tenant  of  an  individual.  In  the  second  place,  as  corporations  have 
no  souls,  so  have  they  no  impeciiniosity;  there  is  always  money  for 
repairs,  and  one  of  the  consequences  of  this  is  that  the  position  of 
the  agricultural  laborer  is  often  better  on  the  estate  of  a  corporation 
than  on  those  of  individuals,  since,  when  cottages  and  other  repairs 
are  wanted,  money  is  always  forthcoming  for  their  erection. 

In  prosperous  times  the  wage  of  the  agricultural  laborer  through- 
out England  averages  little  less  than  18s.  a  week,  varying  from  13s. 
a  week  in  the  south,  to  18s.  in  the  east,  and  20s.  or  21s.  in  the  ex- 
treme north,  where  not  only  is  the  rate  increased  by  competition 
of  manufacturing  and  commercial  employment,  but  the  work  done 
is  generally  regarded  as  of  a  higher  quality.  This  weekly  wage 
by  no  means  exhaustively  represents  the  earnings  of  a  capable  or 
active  worker,  much  less  of  his  family,  supposing  the  family  to  be 
of  industrial  age.  Both  at  the  time  of  wheat  and  hay  harvest  there 
are,  as  we  have  seen,  longer  hours  of  work  and  higher  rates  of  pay. 
In  the  midlands  and  in  the  south  of  England  there  is  the  oppor- 
tunity of  supplementing  the  regular  weekly  payment  by  odd  jobs 
of  hedging,  ditching,  and  draining,  given  out  as  piece-work.  Add 
to  this  that  the  wagoner,  herdsman,  shepherd,  and  any  other  la- 
borer, who,  being  charged  with  the  attention  of  the  live  stock  of  the 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  yyt 

farm,  to  use  the  expression  already  employed,  is  never  off  duty,  is 
frequently  furnished  with  a  cottage  and  garden  rent-free,  and  it 
will  be  seen  that  the  agricultural  toiler  is  not  without  substantial 
perquisites.*  It  is  not  the  ease  that  the  introduction  of  macrrin 
into  the  processes  of  harvest  have  reduced  the  available  earnings  of 
the  laborer.  "In  the  fen  districts  of  Cambridgeshire  and  Lincoln- 
shire"— Mr.  Little  is  again  our  authority — "a  strong  man  will  con- 
sider himself  very  ill  paid  if  he  cannot  earn  9s.  or  10s.  a  day  in 
following  the  reaper,  and  7s.  or  8s.  when  housing  the  corn.'-  Thus 
in  the  autumn  of  1877  a  family,  consisting  of  a  man,  his  wife,  a  girl 
aged  sixteen,  a  boy  aged  fourteen,  and  two  other  children  of,  re- 
spectively, eleven  and  nine,  earned  in  that  part  of  England  during 
a  period  of  five  weeks  just  £25,  to  which  must  be  added  sixteen 
bushels  of  gleaning  corn  picked  up  by  the  wii'e  and  two  girls,  and 
valued  at  5s.  a  bushel.  Thus  we  arrive  at  a  total  of  near  £30.  The 
normal  wages  of  this  man  were  15s.  a  wTeek.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
working  for  forty-seven  weeks  out  of  the  fifty-two,  he  made  an 
average  of  17s.  a  week,  and  the  entire  earnings  of  his  family  be- 
tween Michaelmas  187G  and  Michaelmas  1877  were  £97  0s.  9Ad. 
Mr.  Clare  Sewell  Read  once  remarked  to  the  writer,  that  a  fair 
day's  work  secures  its  worth  in  money  all  England  over.  Mr. 
Little's  opinion  is  similar,  for  he  says,  "  I  shall  content  myself  with 
the  assertion,  that  as  a  rule  the  average  amount  of  weekly  wages 
paid  in  the  country  may  be  taken  as  no  very  unfair  index  of  the 
actual  amount  of  work  performed  by  the  average  laborer  of  such 
districts.  Whether  the  nominal  weekly  wages  are  13s.  or  18s.,  the 
amount  of  actual  labor  performed  bears  something  like  a  relative 
proportion  to  these  sums." 

But  it  may  be  urged,  that  since  1876,  and  even  since  1877,  there 
has  been  a  great  decline  in  the  rate  of  agricultural  wages.  It, 
therefore,  occurred  to  the  writer  to  endeavor  to  secure  an  exact 
return  of  the  wages  paid  in  different  localities  of  England  to  farm 
laborers  during  the  week  ending  February  1,  1879.  This,  by  the 
kindness  of  a  gentleman  who  has  exceptional  facilities  for  securing 
such  information,  we  are  enabled  to  do.  The  question  was  put  to 
more  than  sixty  farmers  in  various  counties,  "  What  weekly  wage  do 

*  In  Northumberland  the  laborer  generally  lias  a  cow  kept  for  him  by  his 
employer,  at  a  charge  of  £8  a  year.  "As  far,"  writes  Mr.  Little,  "aa  the  chil- 
dren of  his  household  are  concerned,  he  is,  therefore,  ndent  of 
6upplies  of  animal  food;  and  I  cannot  but  attribute  some  of  the  fin  i  physical 
powers  of  the  northern  race  to  the  use  of  this  nourishing  and  stn  ngthening 
diet." 


196  EN-GLAND. 

you  give  this  current  week  to  an  ordinary  farm  laborer  on  your 
farm  ?  "  The  replies  produced  the  following  results,  which  may  be 
depended  on  as  entirely  trustworthy: — 

In  the  last  week  in  January,  1879,  the  wage  of  an  ordinary  agri- 
cultural laborer  may  be  taken  to  have  been,  in  Essex,  Suffolk,  and 
Norfolk,  12s.  to  13s.  a  week;  in  the  counties  of  Hertford,  Bucks, 
Berks,  and  Oxford,  12s.  to  lis.  a  week;  in  Cambridgeshire  13s.;  in 
the  central  counties,  and  from  Bedfordshire  northwards,  at  13s.  to 
15s.;  and  in  Nottinghamshire  and  Lincolnshire,  15s.;  in  Yorkshire 
it  ranged  from  15s.  at  the  southern  end  to  16s.,  17s.,  and  18s.  pro- 
ceeding northwards;  and  in  Durham  the  rate  may  be  taken  as  19s. 
to  20s. ;  and  in  Northumberland  as  21s.  a  week. 

In  Cumberland  the  rate  was  reported  as  20s.  a  week,  and  imme- 
diately adjoining  to  the  Haematite  Mines,  24s.  a  week  both  in  Cum- 
berland and  Lancashire. 

In  the  rest  of  Lancashire  and  in  the  manufacturing  districts  and 
near  large  towns  the  rate  varies  very  much  as  the  population  is 
more  or  less  employed.  In  the  agricultural  parts  of  Cheshire  the 
rate  was  15s.;  in  Staffordshire  and  Salop  it  was  14s.  to  15s.;  in 
Worcestershire,  13s.  to  14s. ;  and  in  Herefordshire,  12s.  a  week.  In 
Dorsetshire  and  Wiltshire  the  rate  may  be  taken  as  12s.  a  week, 
and  in  some  cases  lis.  a  week;  in  Somersetshire  as  13s.  to  14s.;  and 
in  Devonshire  12s.  a  week.  Along  the  south  coast,  through  Hants 
and  Sussex,  the  rate  was  about  14s. ;  in  Kent  it  ranged  from  14s.  in 
the  Weald  to  17s.  or  18s.  near  Kochester  and  Sittingbourne.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  present  century  the  wages  paid  for  agricultural 
labor — supplemented,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  very  largely  in 
every  case  out  of  the  rates — was,  on  an  average,  9s.  a  week;  wheat 
being  at  £5  13s.  7d.  a  quarter — nine  and  a  half  days'  work  repre- 
senting the  price  of  a  bushel — and  meat  at  9d.  a  pound.  In  £878 
the  average  wage  has  been  calculated  at  15s. ;  wheat  being  at  £2  7s. 
a  quarter,  a  bushel  being  earned  by  the  pecuniary  yield  of  two  and 
one  third  days'  work,  and  meat  being  at  6|d.  a  pound.  To  this  15s. 
must  be  added,  from  what  we  have  seen  above,  the  extra  money 
earned  during  harvest-time,  and  allowances  of  beer  or  milk.  Fur- 
ther, it  must  be  remembered  that  rents  are  lower,  and  that  all  arti- 
cles of  food  and  clothing  are  infinitely  cheaper  than  they  were  forty 
years  ago.  Eradicate  drunkenness,  practically  inculcate  the  virtue 
of  thrift,  encourage  emigration,  and  the  agricultural  laborer  ought 
never  to  be  upon  the  rates  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  On  the 
whole,  drunkenness  is  diminishing,  while  as  for  thrift,  there  is  rea  ■  <n 
to  believe  that  it  will  come  as  education  improves  and  prospei 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  197 

arrows.     After  all,  want  of  thrift  and  increase  in  expenditure  on  the 

material  comforts  of  life  are  not  the  evils  peculiar  to  a  clasSj  bu1 
common  to  the  whole  community;  and  there  is  good  reason  to  doubt 
whether  the  agricultural  laborer  is  relatively  more  thriftle  is  than  is 
the  artisan  or  the  professional  man.  There  is,  indeed,  in  his  house- 
hold more,  perhaps,  of  deliberate  waste  and  of  prejudice  against 
economy  than  in  the  social  level  a  little  above  him;  certainly  m 
reluctance  to  make  experiments  in  new  and  economical  foods;  less 
dread  than  might  have  been  wished  of  an  old  age  of  pauperism,  and 
of  dependence  on  the  bounty  of  others.  But  then  let  us  remember 
what  are  the  agencies  and  influences  of  which  the  agricultural  la- 
borer is  the  outcome.  It  is  not  merely  that  his  life  in  the  south  of 
England,  where  he  is  simply  for  the  most  part  the  passive  instru- 
ment of  the  orders  of  the  bailiff  or  the  farmer,  calls  into  play  none 
of  those  faculties,  none  of  that  nerve  or  power  of  mental  initiative 

I    displayed  among  the  shepherds  of  the  north,  "  the  isolation  of  wh 
lives,"  writes  Mr.  Little,  "  and  the  difficulties  of  whose  calling,  have 
so  contributed  to  though tfulness  and  reflection  upon  the  mat! 
which  concern  their  every-day  life  and  the  welfare  of  their  char] 
that  it  would,  perhaps,  be  difficult  in  any  country  to  find  a  class 
possessed  of  greater  natural  intelligence  and  sagacity."     Th< 
cultural  laborer  generally  throughout  England  is  at  the  present 
the  victim  of  vicious  usages  and  legislation,  which  have  made  his 
comparative  degradation  hereditary.     A  hundred  years  ago  wages 
were,  as  the  above  cpioted  figures  will  show,  generally  low,  the  price 
of  provisions   was  high,  the  labor   market  was  overstocked.     The 
great  wars  from  which  we  were  just  emerging  had  dislocated  and 
paralyzed  the  entire  commercial  and  industrial  system  of  the  coun- 
try, and  the  immense  majority  of  the  laboring  population  could  only 
find  any  employment  in  agriculture.     The  state  of  the  agricultural 
community — itself  nearly  the  bulk  of  the  nation — bordered  closely 
upon  general  starvation.     The  expedient  was  resorted  to  of  gn  i 

I  relief  to  every  English  peasant  out  of  the  rates,  quite  independently 
of  whether  he  was  or  was  not  at  work.  This  was  nothing  less  than 
a  system  of  wholesale  compulsory  pauperism,  of  direct  discouraj 

I  ment  of  the  virtues  of  prudence,  thrift,  self-help.  The  revenues  of 
entire  parishes  went  to  the  relief  of  their  poor,  and  cases  were  not 
unknown  in  which  the  owners  of  estates  were  without  a  shillin 
their  income,  which  was  swallowed  up  in  this  quicksand  of  debasin  • 
and  mischievous  expenditure.  In  1834,  came  the  new  Poor  L: 
which  created  union  districts,  and  gave  a  direct  motive  to  the  col- 
lective inhabitants  of  the  entire  area,  instead  of  to  the  dwellers  in 


198  ENGLAND. 

a  small  village,  to  check  the  tendency  towards  pauperism.  Other 
causes,  equally  beneficent  to  the  British  peasantry,  were  at  work. 
Manufacturing  and  other  industries  became  developed  in  the  south 
of  England,  as  well  as  in  the  north,  and  the  introduction  and  exten- 
sion of  railways  enabled  the  peasant  to  transfer  his  labor  from  places 
where  it  was  not  wanted  to  markets  in  which  a  demand  for  it  ex- 
isted. Still  the  improvement  in  the  peasant's  condition  was  much 
more  rapid  in  the  north  than  in  the  south,  and  in  Scotland  wages 
were  18s.  and  20s.  a  week,  long  after  they  were  not  more  than  10s. 
in  Devonshire  and  in  Dorset.  Yet  agriculture  in  the  south  was  far 
from  stationary;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  making  marked  progress, 
and  that  wages  did  not  rise  in  a  corresponding  manner  is  only  to 
be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  in  the  south  there  was  more  labor 
available,  and  that  labor  of  a  worse  quality,  than  in  the  north. 

Up  to  this  time  the  farmer  had  been  absolutely  master  of  the 
situation.  He  regulated  the  rate  of  the  daily  wage  of  his  laborers 
at  the  price  of  wheat,  with  little  or  no  reference  to  the  rates  of  the 
other  necessaries  of  life.  When,  however,  free  trade  had  generally 
reduced  the  price  of  wheat,  this  method  became  impossible.  Still, 
there  was  no  kind  of  organization  among  the  rural  laborers  of  En- 
gland, as  against  their  employers  the  farmers,  which  at  all  corre- 
sponded with  the  unions  that  had  grown  up  in  urban  industries. 
A  great  innovation,  however,  in  this  respect  was  at  hand.  Founded 
in  1871,  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  increasing  wages,  the  Agricul- 
tural Laborers'  Union  soon  covered  the  entire  country  with  its 
organization.  It  at  once  sent  up  wages,  but  it  also  changed  very 
generally  the  relations  between  agricultural  laborers  and  farmers. 
The  years  1872,  1873,  and  1874  were  a  period  of  fierce  struggle 
in  the  agricultural  world,  the  last  of  these  years  being  marked  by 
the  vigorous  resistance  to  the  demands  of  the  Union,  which  may  be 
described  as  a  great  machinery  for  the  encouragement  of  strikes,  in 
the  east  of  England.  Yet,  on  the  whole,  the  Agricultural  Labor- 
ers' Union  must  be  allowed  to  have  accomplished  much  of  its  pro- 
gramme. It  has  stimulated  emigration  both  to  the  colonies  and  to 
the  manufacturing  districts  of  England,  and  it  sent  up  wages  in  1875 
thirty  per  cent.  Co-operating  and  coinciding  with  the  extension  of 
cheap  literature,  the  circulation  of  newspapers,  the  growing  contact 
between  town  and  country,  the  Union  has  generally  stimulated  the 
*  mental  activity  and  perception  of  the  working  man.  It  has  not  con- 
fronted us  with  any  immediate  revolutionary  perils,  but  it  has  left 
the  laboring  classes  in  rural  districts  better  able  to  take  care  of 
themselves  than  they  were,  and  it  has  done  this  .because  it  has  been 


THE    WORKING    CLASSES.  1<)9 

Only  one  of  many  movements  of  the  time  toward.  ,',i  :il.     If 

it  has  diminished  the  willingness  of  the  laborers  to  place  implicit 
and  childlike  confidence  in  the  justice  and  generosity  of  their  em- 
ployers, it  can  scarcely  be  said  permanently,  i<>  an\  ree,  t<> 
have  embittered  the  relations  of  the  two.  It  is  not  again  i\  I  ae  ten- 
ant farmers  that  the  agricultural  laborers  profess  for  the  most  part 
any  grievance.  In  the  west  of  England,  throughout  those  distn 
in  which  their  social  condition  is  still  deplorably  bad,  the  cottages 
being  little  better  than  mud  hovels,  and  the  filth  and  squalor  inde- 
scribable, the  admission  is  made  by  the  suffering  peasants  that  the 
lowness  of  the  wage  is  not  the  fault  of  the  farmers.  "The  laud- 
lords,"  is  the  burden  of  their  conversation,  "are  hard." 

That  there  are  obvious  disadvantages  connected  with  the  Union 
cannot  be  denied.  Then-  political  teachers  often  inculcate  vicious 
and  unsound  principles  of  economy — pretend,  for  instance,  that  the 
owners  and  holders  of  land  enjoy  in  the  matter  of  taxation  privileges 
denied  to  manufacturers;  the  truth  being  that  the  heaviest  land  tax 
of  all  is  paid  by  the  corn-producing  counties  of  England,  and  the 
lightest  by  the  mineral  and  manufacturing  districts  of  the  north. 
It  is  urged,  too,  that  the  Union  has  deteriorated  the  quality  of  the 
laborers'  work.  It  is  certainly  opposed  to  piece-work,  which  is  the 
chief,  perhaps  the  only  mode  of  raising  inferior  labor  to  a  higher 
standard.  By  insisting  on  a  uniform  rate  of  day-work  and  short 
hours  it  brings  the  best  laborers  down  to  the  lowest  level.  "Upon 
this  farm,"  writes  a  well-known  agriculturist  in  an  eastern  county, 
"of  420  acres,  I  pay  away  annually  over  £1,000  in  manual  labor,  ex- 
clusive of  the  skilled  labor  employed  in  steam  plowing  and  thresh- 
ing which  I  hire,  and  yet  my  work  is  badly  clone,  and  also  in  arrear. 
I  cannot  get  any  piece-work  done,  unless  I  happen  to  be  on  the 
spot,  and  coerce  them  into  it,  and  even  then  the  work  is  scamped." 

"  The  day  has  now  come,"  writes  Mr.  Little,  "  when  the  laborer, 
if  he  is  to  rise  in  the  social  scale,  must  look  mainly  to  himself.  If 
in  the  dark  days  of  the  past  the  laws  seemed  against  him,  it  is  no 
longer  so.  He  is  a  free  man,  free  from  conscription,  or  compulsory 
service  in  the  army,  and  the  ecpial  of  those  about  him.  Legislation 
has  done  its  best  for  him  and  his  children.  He  is  at  liberty  to  move 
wherever  he  can  get  the  best  return  for  his  labor.  He  is  prad  Lcally 
the  only  untaxed  man  in  the  community,  since  (except  in  the  article 
of  tea,  on  which  a  small  duty  is  still  paid)  he  can,  if  he  chooa  B,  by 
abstinence  from  those  articles,  avoid  the  imposts  on  beer,  spirits,  and 
tobacco."  An  admirable  and  practically  free  education  is  granted 
to  his  children.     This  education,  when  its  results  have  had  turn    to 


'200  ENGLAND. 

make  themselves  felt,  will  no  doubt  give  us  a  new  order  of  British 
peasantry.  Nor  is  it  the  only  machinery  at  work  which  is  gradually 
improving  his  position  and  extending  the  horizon  of  his  views. 
While  plowing  matches,  prizes  for  draining,  hedging,  ditching, 
stacking,  and  other  operations  of  husbandry,  cottage-garden  shows, 
and  other  institutions,  tend  to  make  him  a  better  laborer,  the  gen- 
eral influences  of  the  time  are  all  in  the  direction  of  improvement. 
One  may  almost  quote  the  beautiful  lines  in  Dr.  Newman's  "Dream 
of  Gerontius": — 

"He  dreed  his  penance  age  by  age; 
And  step  by  step  began 
Slowly  to  doff  bis  savage  garb, 
And  be  again  a  man." 

The  agricultural  laborer  feels  that  he,  too,  like  his  urban  brother,  is 
a  man.  He  has  acquired  a  consciousness  of  power,  a  growing  sense 
of  enlightenment,  a  widening  perception  of  rights  and  duties,  which 
may  be  used  as  powerful  levers  for  his  future  amelioration.  Talk  to 
the  average  country  laborer  to-day,  and  you  will  find  him  no  longer 
the  dull,  despondent  being  that  he  was  a  decade  since,  the  horizon 
of  his  views  and  knowledge  being  the  boundaries  of  his  parish,  or 
the  field  in  which  he  was  plying  his  task.  His  senses  have  been 
quickened,  his  moral  and  mental  nature  has  been  breathed  upon 
with  the  breath  of  life. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

PAUPERISM    AND    THRIFT. 

General  Appearance  of  the  Workhouse  and  its  Inmates — Paupers  out  for  a  Walk 
— Composition  of  the  Pauper  Class — Tendency  towards  Pauperism  not  pe- 
culiar to  the  Lower  Orders — Out-door  Relief — General  view  of  Difficulties 
of  its  Administration — Social  and  Moral  Consequences  of  Out-door  Relief — 
Out-door  Relief  and  Paiiperism — Remedies  for  Pauperism — Effect  of  Out- 
door Relief  upon  Wages  and  Character — The  Poor  Law  and  Socialism — 
Should  the  Workhouse  Test  be  made  universal?  Antidotes  to  Pauperism: 
Voluntary  Help  and  Friendly  Societies — Attitude  and  Duties  of  the  State 
to  Friendly  Societies — Penny  Banks — Further  Requirements  for  teaching 
Thrift — Co-operation. 

OF  the  predisposing  causes  of  pauperism  something  has  been  said 
in  the  last  chapter.  Of  its  existence  it  is  impossible  to  be  1<  •  g 
in  any  great  town,  or  indeed  in  any  country  district,  without  being 
forcibly  reminded.  That  gaunt,  graceless,  red-brick  building  yon- 
der, with  the  long  narrow  windows,  placed  in  an  inclosure  of  grass- 
plot,  gravel-walk,  and  flower-bed,  is  the  new  workhouse.  Every 
thing  about  it  seems  to  tell  of  leanness,  depression,  misery,  and 
want.  The  walls  are  naked;  the  herbage  is  stunted;  the  recently- 
planted  poplars  and  other  trees  decline  to  thrive  in  so  poverty- 
stricken  a  soil;  as  for  the  flower-beds,  no  seed  has  ever  been  sown 
in  their  mold,  or,  if  sown,  has  never  dared  to  put  forth  its  tendf  r 
sproutings,  which  tell  of  coming  bud  and  blossom.  Inside  this  joy- 
less edifice  the  guardians  are  engaged  in  examining  and  adjudicat- 

(  ing  on  the  claims  of  the  needy  throng  whose  members  have  just 
passed  in  through  the  iron  gates,  to  the  relief  that  does  not  involve 
residence  in  the  "house"  itself — relief  consisting  of  three  shillings  a 
week  and  three  loaves  of  bread;  or,  if  it  be  later  in  the  day.  the 
master  and  matron  may  be  passing  in  review  before  thein  the  htck- 

l  less  tramps  of  both  sexes  who  have  applied  for  a  night's  lodging  in 
the  casual  ward.  There  are  few  sadder  sights  than  this  mu  iter,  and 
it  is  conducted  upon  principles  which  have  about  them  painfully 
little  of  the  associations  of  charity.     The  authorities  said  com- 

mence their  examination  of  the  necessitous  a;  ats  on  the  as- 


202  ENGLAND. 

t  sumption  that  each  one  is  an  impostor,  an  habitual  tramp,  who 
spends  his  or  her  life  in  traveling  up  and  down  the  weary  roads, 
now  begging  and  now  stealing,  as  opportunity  may  offer.  Hence 
master  and  matron  alike  hesitate  to  admit  that  any  particular  face 
which  comes  before  them  is  new.  They  may  ask  the  question, 
"  Where  do  you  come  from  ?  "  but  they  place  evidently  no  trust  in 
the  answer,  and  there  always  comes  the  inquiry,  "  When  were  you 
last  here  ?  "  Now  in  the  majority  of  cases  it  may  be  admitted  that 
the  official  niind  is  right,  and  that  the  professional  pauper  who  is 
also  an  habitual  tramp  is  not  more  honest  than  the  obsolete  high- 
wayman. On  the  other  hand,  there  are  instances — and  when  the 
times  are  hard  these  instances  are  not  few — -in  which  the  industri- 
ous mechanic  or  artisan,  who  has  no  funds  to  travel  by  railway,  per- 
forms his  journey  from  one  center  of  industry  to  another  on  foot, 
and  is  compelled  at  nightfall  to  betake  himself  to  that  shelter  which 
is  the  common  refuge  of  the  penniless.  But  there  is  no  distinction 
of  persons  possible  to  official  eyes.  Deserving  and  undeserving,  the 
vicious,  the  drunken  and  dibhonest,  the  sober,  the  unfortunate,  and 
the  industrious,  are  all  relegated  to  one  category,  all  subjected  to 
the  same  ordeal.  The  internal  discipline  and  management  of  work- 
houses vary,  but  in  the  case  of  the  greatest  number  the  occu|3ant  of 

.  the  casual  ward  has,  during  his  residence  inside  its  walls,  a  rougher 
time  than  many  a  prisoner  in  a  convict  jail. 

Who  are  the  habitual  inmates  of  this  house,  which  has  not,  and 
which  ought  not,  perhaps,  to  have,  any  of  the  comforts  or  sugges- 
tions of  home  about  it  ?  If  you  were  to  spend  a  couple  of  hours 
under  its  roof,  you  would  find  there  men  and  women  of  all  ages, 
and  of  conditions  of  life  originally  widely  apart.  There,  too,  are 
children  who  have  only  just  come  into  the  world,  and  whose  mothers 

f  have  fallen  into  hopeless,  helpless  want,  or  into  sin  and  shame,  or 
into  both  simultaneously.  Yet  it  is  better  for  a  boy  or  girl  to  look 
upon  light  first  in  a  workhouse  than  in  one  of  the  vile  alleys  or 
pestiferous  slums  which  are  the  nurseries  of  crime  and  criminals. 
The  guardians  will  at  least  not  permit  these  waifs  and  strays  of 
humanity  to  grow  up  absolutely  neglected  and  ignorant.  Directly 
they  can  learn  any  thing  there  is  the  workhouse  school,  and  as  soon 
as  their  hands  can  hold  any  instrument  of  industry  they  are  taught 
the  rudiments  of  an  occupation  which  may  help  them  to  get  an 
honest  living.  Contrast  with  the  children  the  group  of  men  and 
women,  most  of  them  well  stricken  in  years  or  prematurely  aged, 
weak  and  tottering,  who  have  just  shuffled  out  of  the  workhouse 
yard.     These  are  the  resident  paupers  of  the  union,  and  they  have 


PAUPERISM  AND    THRIFT.  203 

received  permission  to  visit  their  friends  and  relatives  in  the  n.  ; 
borliood,  not  without  a  stringent  word  of  warning  aj  mendi- 

cancy and  against  intoxication.     The  true  light  in  which  to  regard 
this  throng,  whose  members  walk  on  by  twos  and  i '  repre- 

senting the  failures  of  our  civilization.  They  ought  to  have  saved  a 
competence,  or  to  be  supported  by  grateful  children,  or  to  be  spend- 
ing  the  residue  of  their  clays  in  climes  where  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence is  less  keen  than  in  England.  At  any  rate,  they  ought  not  to  be 
here.  Here,  however,  they  are,  and  here  for  some  time  yet  to  come 
the}*  are  likely  to  continue — a  familiar,  and,  to  those  who  are  alive 
to  all  that  their  presence  means,  a  melancholy  sight.  There  is  no 
mistaking  their  identity.  The  men  are  clothed  in  a  low  felt  hat, 
jacket  and  trousers  of  fustian,  or  coat  and  trousers  of  brown  cloth 
or  velveteen,  according  as  it  happens  to  be  a  week-day  or  a  Sunday; 
the  women  are  conspicuous  by  their  uniform  of  coarse  dark  blue 
cotton  dress,  poke  bonnet  of  rough  straw,  and  thin  woolen  shawl 
of  shepherd's  plaid  thrown  across  their  shoulders.  It  is  curious  to 
observe  how  some  of  those  who  had  appeared  the  most  hopele 
infirm  before  the  workhouse  authorities  and  in  the  immediate  pre- 
cincts of  the  building,  proceed  at  a  comparatively  rapid  rate,  and 
assume  naturally  a  more  or  less  agile  manner,  when  these  are  out 
of  sight.  For  the  most  part,  however,  the  paupers  of  both  sexes 
pick  their  way  slowly,  keeping  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground,  and 
walking  as  near  the  edge  of  the  pavement  on  the  side  of  the  gutter 
as  possible,  mumbling  inarticulately  the  while.  There  is  a  reason 
for  this.  There  is  not  only  the  chance  of  their  finding  an  odd  coin 
at  then-  feet — you  may  see  the  men  trailing  then-  sticks  in  the  gutter 
itself  to  recognize  by  the  sound  the  possible  piece  of  copper  or  si  I 
— but  it  will  be  hard  if  they  cannot  find  some  of  the  cigar  stamps 
and  shreds  of  tobacco  which  they  love,  and  from  the  enjoyment  of 
which  they  are  not  deterred  by  an  admixture  of  mire  and  tilth. 

Of  this  mixed  band  of  dependents  on  the  law-exacted  charity  of 
the  ratepayers  some  have  been  gravitating  more  or  less  rapidly 
in  the  direction  of  pauperism  throughout  their  whole  life.  Edu- 
cated in  squalor,  in  shiftlessuess,  in  sin,  accustomed  from  the  first  to 
regard  the  "house"  as  the  not  illegitimate  goal  of  existence,  they 
have  never  seriously  struggled  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  entering  it. 
They  have  worked  fitfully,  intermittently,  squandering  their  earn- 
ings on  periodical  debauches  at  the  beer-house  at  frequent  intervals. 
Sickness  has  come,  or  they  have  been  out  of  work,  or  they  could  aot 
pay  their  rent,  and  there  were  no  friends  to  help  them.  Firs!  t 
have  managed  to  exist  on  the  dole  allowed  them  \  the 


204  ENGLAND. 

guardians  without  residing  beneath  the  workhouse  roof.  But  they 
have  found  infirmity  grow  on  them  apace.  Their  sons,  daughters, 
and  other  relatives,  have  closed  the  doors  against  them,  and  the 
choice  has  been  between  the  union  and  absolute  homelessness. 
Not  unfrequently  it  happens  that  many  of  the  aged  inmates  of  the 
workhouse  have  not  only  seen  what  are  conventionally  known  as 
better  days,  but  have  been  nurtured  in  comfort  and  ease,  in  luxury 
and  wealth. 

There  are  few  villages  in  England  in  which  families  are  not  to 
be  found  for  whom  the  workhouse  seems  a  bourn  as  inevitable  as 
the  grave  itself.  When  one  enters  a  cottage,  passively  surrendered 
to  destitution,  and  notes  how  completely  men,  women,  and  children 
have  abandoned  themselves  to  the  paralyzing  influences  of  want; 
not  hopeless  alone,  but  indifferent  to  any  chance  of  amelioration; 
sunk  in  a  stupor  alike  moral  and  physical;  ignorant  whence  the  next 
mouthful  of  bread  is  to  come,  and,  as  one  may  think,  nearly  as  cal- 
lous on  the  subject  as  they  are  ignorant:  when  one  notes  all  this, 
one  witnesses  the  genuine  material  out  of  which  paupers  are  made. 
Again,  that  drink  leads  to  beggary  as  well  as  to  crime  is  a  common- 
place. It  is  doubtless  an  exceedingly  frequent  cause  of  pauperism, 
but  there  is  another  cause  less  specific  and  definite,  but  certainly 
not  more  rare.  In  all  grades  of  life  one  meets  with  people  who, 
from  their  infancy  upwards,  are  impotent  to  help  themselves.  They 
are  morally  invertebrate — without  energy,  without  spirit,  without 
ambition.  When  such  persons  are  independent  of  their  own  exer- 
tions for  the  necessaries  of  life  no  evil  happens  to  them.  But  if  a 
calamity  comes,  if  the  enterprise  in  which  the  capital  on  whose  in- 
terest they  live  is  embarked  collapses,  they  are  altogether  without 
resource.  They  become  pensioners  on  relatives  or  friends  if  they 
have  them,  or  they  disappear  from  view  if  they  have  not.  Now  this 
temperament  is  unhappily  far  from  unknown  among  the  working 
classes.  It  is  the  baleful  inheritance  of  generations,  and  is  perpetu- 
ated from  father  to  son.  These  are  the  drones  of  the  hive.  They  are 
not  the  exclusive  incumbrance  of  any  class:  they  belong  to  all  alike. 
The  only  difference  is  that  in  the  higher  walks  of  life  they  are  spoken 
of  with  contemptuous  pity  as  unlucky,  and  in  the  lower  as  paupers. 
Thus,  roughly  speaking,  pauperism  consists  of  two  sections,  the 
first  composed  of  those  who  are  paupers  by  no  fault  of  their  own; 
the  second  of  those  who  have  adopted  pauperism  as  their  vocation 
'  in  life,  because  Poor  Law  relief  enables  them  to  exist  without  work- 
ing. For  the  former,  the  Poor  Law  and  the  workhouse,  if  they  are 
to  enter  it,  should  be  a  relief  and  a  refuge,  for  the  latter  it  ought  to 


PAUPERISM   AXD     THRIFT. 

be  a  punishment.  Hence  the  severe  regimen  of  work  and  discipline 
enforced  in  many  unions — a  regimen  perfectly  just  in  the  case  of 
sturdy  tramps,  but  painfully  harsh  in  the  case  of  those  who  have 
been  dragged  down  by  a  destiny  which  thej  could  n<.t  resist  Be- 
fore pauperism  became  the  subject  of  legislation  by  the  State,  there 
existed  in  those  doles  and  charities,  which  represented  the  munifi- 
cence of  previous  generations,  the  means  of  relievi  more  de- 
serving members  of  the  pauper  class.  Gradually  th  sse  <  n ■ ! ■  >v.  m  mts 
became  a  machinery  for  disseminating  pauperism  amongsl  the  work- 
ing classes.  Hundreds  of  men  and  women  were  drawn  from  the 
paths  of  honest  labor  by  their  participation  in  the  almsgiving.  II 
was  the  development  of  the  habitual  pauper  class,  th<  ise  who  iteadily 
refused  to  work  for  their  living,  which  rendered  a  Poor  Law  nei 
sary,  and  which  naturally  gave  to  such  a  measure  much  o  disci- 
plinary and  punitive  character.  Provision  for  the  me  land 
helpless  poor  was  a  secondary  purpose  of  this  Poor  Law,  and  il  is 
the  fusion  of  two  purposes  in  one  system  which  creates  an  anomaly 
and  a  hardship.  Our  method  of  dealing  with  the  exci  com- 
plex aggregate  of  pauperism  can  scarcely  be  satisfi  •  as 
the  workhouse  is  at  once  a  place  of  punishment  for  hardened  and 
willful  paupers,  and  an  almshouse  and  infirmary  for  the  old,  the 
sickly,  the  infirm,  or  the  victims  of  sudden  and  unavoidal  un- 
ities. The  problem  to  be  solved,  and  which  has  as  yel  defied  solu- 
tion, is  how,  while  not  refusing  relief  which  is  at  once  Christian  and 
economical  for  those  who  really  want  and  deserve  it,  we  may  stamp 
out  the  pauperism  which  is  preventable,  and,  therefore,  s  i  far  mor- 
ally criminal. 

One  of  the  questions  that  chiefly  engages  the  attention  o1'  P,oards 
of  Gifardians  has  been  indicated  in  a  previous  chapter  * — whel 
residence  in  the  workhouse  shall  or  shall  not  be  the  condition  of 
n  lief  from  the  rates.     We  will  now  proceed  to  examine  the  rea 
that  may  influence  our  guardians  in  the  decision  at  which,  on  I 
matter,  they  may  arrive.     In  other  words,  we  have  to  confront  the 
whole  momentous  problem  of  the   expediency  or  ine  >ncy  of 

|   out-door  relief.     On  the  first  view  of  the  matter  it  may  seem  im] 
sible  to  refuse  assent  to  the  proposition  that  it  is  at  once  more  mer- 
ciful and  more  economical  to  subsidize  a  household  with  a  few  shil- 
lings per  week,  enabling  the  family  with  the  aid  thus  granted 
hold  itself  together,  and  to  keep  a  roof  above  its  head,  than  peremp- 
torily to  destroy  this  little  center  of  domestic  life,  and  to  insist  up 

*  Chapter  IT. 


206  ENGLAND. 

supporting  those  who  constitute  it  at  the  expense  of  the  ratepayers. 
"When  Christian  charity  and  worldly  wisdom  point  unmistakably  the 
same  way,  what  need,  it  may  be  asked,  or  what  excuse  can  there  be 
for  hesitation  ?  If  humanity  is  a  virtue  that  resides  in  the  hearts  of 
Boards  of  Guardians,  why  should  they  doubt  for  a  moment  which 
of  two  alternatives — on  the  one  hand  the  destruction  of  a  home  at 
a  larger  expense,  on  the  other  its  preservation  at  a  smaller — they  are 
bound  to  adopt '?  But  the  fact  remains  that  guardians  do  hesitate 
very  much  indeed  in  this  matter,  and  that  there  is  a  gradually  grow- 
ing belief  among  them  that  of  the  two  alternatives  just  specified  it 
is  on  the  whole  better  to  choose  the  more  drastic  and  the  less  appar- 
ently humane  one.  Unless,  therefore,  we  are  prepared  to  maintain 
that  there  is  something  in  the  office  of  a  guardian  which  poisons  the 
stream  of  •humanity  at  its  source,  we  must  admit  that  there  are  prob- 
ably good  and  sufficient  reasons  for  a  hesitation  which  is  prima  facie 
inexplicable. 

If  it  could  be  insured  that  out-door  relief  was  only  given  for  the 
succor  of  the  severest  want  or  of  absolute  destitution,  in  cases  where 
destitution  and  want  were,  humanly  speaking,  not  pre  vent  able — were 
the  results  of  continued  illness,  death,  or  some  other  desolating  ca- 
lamity— though  aU  grounds  of  objection  to  it  would  not  be  dismissed, 
the  system  would  not  be  as  severely  attacked  as  it  now  is.  "When 
out-door  relief  is  given,  it  must  be  given  necessarily  to  the  undeserv- 
ing as  well  as  the  deserving,  to  those  who  are  beggared  by  thought- 
lessness, improvidence,  drunkenness,  as  well  as  to  those  who  have 
fallen  victims  to  relentless  and  unavoidable  fate.  Theoretically,  the 
line  might  be  drawn  by  adequate  investigation.  Practically,  the 
scrutiny  is  not  only  extremely  difficult,  but  is  seldom  insisted  on. 
There  are  three  authorities  concerned  in  the  inquiry :  the  relieving 
officer,  the  medical  officer,  and  the  guardians.  The  first  of  these  is 
charged  with  a  multiplicity  of  duties,  which  prevent  him  from  ac- 
quainting himself  with  the  full  details  of  the  different  cases  that 
come  before  him.  "  With  perhaps  several  hundred  persons,"  re- 
marks Professor  James  Bryce  in  a  paper  read  at  the  Northampton 
Poor  Law  Conference,  January,  1876,  "  receiving  weekly  payments, 
and  new  applications  continually  arriving,  he  has  no  time  to  inquire 
particularly  into  the  character  or  resources  of  the  applicants,  what 
relatives  ilioy  have,  whether  they  are  secretly  receiving  aid  from 
some  other  quarter,  whether  they  keep  their  houses  in  a  healthy 
state,  whether  they  send  their  children  to  school."  The  doctor  is 
frequently  deceived,  raid,  indeed,  self-interest  may  naturally  prompt 
him  to  be  "a  little  blind."     "  The  guardians,  however  fervent  their 


PAUPERISM  AND    THRIFT.  007 

zeal,  have  generally  no  means  of  ascertaining  for  themselves  -what, 
the  circumstances  of  the  pauper  are.  If  one  member  advocates  the 
claim  of  some  pauper  from  his  own  neighborhood,  the  rest  are  dis- 
posed to  accede,  and  thus  a  bad  example  is  often  set.  Now,"  con- 
tinues Professor  Bryce,  "a  close  personal  scrutiny,  such  as  is  given 
in  Elberfield  or  Boston,  is  more  efficient  and  more  just  than  the 
rough-and-ready  application  of  the  workhouse  test.  But  that  I 
is  far  better  than  such  inquiries  as  our  Boards  can  commonly  mal 

If  we  say  that  there  is  a  total  of  710,175  paupers  in  En 
representing  one  in  thirty,  or  rather  more  than  three  per  cent,  of 
the  population,  we  shall  not  be  far  wrong.  Of  these  224,553,  ex- 
clusive of  those  who  are  not  able-bodied  or  insane,  are  in  receipt 
i  of  out-door  relief.  The  cost  represented  by  the  aggregate  of  the 
entire  pauperism  of  England  was,  in  the  year  ending  March,  1877, 
£7,400,034,  that  by  those  who  are  not  in  the  workhouse  but  are 
upon  the  rates,  £2,092,190.  What  does  this  mean  for  the  social 
and  moral  welfare  of  the  country?  What  is  the  commentary  which 
these  facts  and  figures  constitute,  upon  the  condition  of  the  waj 
earning  class  ? 

Before  we  address  ourselves  to  the  general  question  of  poor 
relief,  it  will  be  advisable  to  say  a  few  words  further  on  the  par- 
ticular department  of  it  represented,  by  the  out-door  system.  A 
j  guardian,  let  it  be  supposed,  honestly  entertains  the  opinion  that 
out-door  relief  has  the  superior  economical  advantages,  which  on 
the  first  blush  of  the  matter  would  certainly  seem  natural  to  it,  and 
that  such  relief  reaches  distress  which,  were  it  not  for  that  benefi- 
cent agency,  would  remain  uncared  for.  The  cost  of  each  family  in 
the  workhouse  is,  he  will  compute,  ten  shillings  a  week;  outside  the 
workhouse  the  cost  is  only  five  shillings.*  Here,  then,  he  may  argue, 
is  a  clear  gain  to  the  rates,  in  other  words,  to  the  community,  of  more 
than  fifty  per  cent.  But  experience  proves  this  sort  of  reasoning  to 
be  fallacious.  The  guardian  who  is  opposed  to  out-door  relief  in 
all  cases  says  with  unanswerable  force  that  the  universal  compulsory 
application  of  the  workhouse  test  stimulates  the  poor  to  exertion 
and  self-help,  keeps  them  clear  of  the  degradation  of  pauperism, 
and  is  as  economically  effective  as  it  is  morally  salutary,  while 
rience  shows  that  the  offer  of  relief  in  the  workhouse  is  refused  in 
nine  cases  out  of  ten.  On  the  other  hand,  he  observes,  many  of  the 
laboring  classes  to  whom  the  stigma  of  pauperism  is  into! 

*  An  able-botlied  widow  with  three  children  would,  on  an  aver  I  5b. 

a  week  with  school  fees;  in  all,  say  5s.  Cd.     The  average  cost  per  head  in  the 
house  is  3s.  4d.  a  week;  average  cost  per  head  out-door,  2s.  9d. 


208  ENGLAND. 

when  emphasized  by  residence  inside  the  workhouse,  are  unreluc- 
tant  and  successful  applicants  for  out-door  relief.  Mr.  Doyle,  in 
one  of  his  Poor  Law  Reports,  draws  attention  to  the  fact  that  of 
647  applicants  for  out-door  relief  only  twenty-seven  accepted  the 
condition  of  workhouse  residence,  from  which  it  may  he  inferred 
that  there  cannot  have  been  bona  fide  distress  in  all  the  instances. 
Not  less  significant  is  the  circumstance  that  in  Whitechapel  weekly 
out-door  relief  has  been  reduced  in  five  years  from  2,556  to  209,  or 
that  in  St.  George's-in-the-East  the  rate  has  fallen  froni  1,200  to  85. 
It  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  these  statistics  merely  indicate  a 
suppression  or  concealment  of  pauperism  impotent  to  relieve  itself, 
and  that  however  the  figures  may  have  changed,  the  facts  remain 
the  same  as  ever,  the  total  of  misery  and  suffering  just  as  real  and 
hopeless.  The  answer  to  such  an  assumption  is  that  the  cry  of 
suffering  hundreds,  if  ignored  by  the  guardians,  would  compel  a 
hearing  from  the  public.  Of  course  the  reduction  of  pauperism  h;is 
not  been,  and  cannot  be  accomplished  without  special  provisions, 
and  much  expenditure  of  personal  trouble.  First,  each  relieving 
officer  must  have,  as  he  has  had  in  the  two  parishes  just  named, 
a  district  whose  limits  will  enable  him  to  learn  whatever  can  be 
learned  about  the  ajiphcants  for  out-door  relief.  Secondly,  the 
children  of  widows,  who  form  thirty-three  per  cent,  of  the  metropol- 
itan paupers,  must  be  taken  into  district  schools,  a  practice  which 
has  been  followed  out  upon  a  large  scale  in  Whitechapel  and  St. 
George's.  Thirdly,  there  must  be  close  and  systematic  co-operation 
with  such  institutions  as  the  Charity  Organization  Society,  societies 
for  the  formation  of  shoe-black  brigades,  emigration  societies,  and 
other  such  associations.  If  it  is  asked  what  is  to  be  done  when 
the  workhouse  is  made  the  condition  of  the  receipt  of  relief,  and  the 
needy  applicants  decline  it,  alleging  that  they  woidd  rather  starve  in 
the  street,  the  answer  may  be  given  in  the  words  of  the  Rev.  S.  A. 
Barnett,  a  clergyman  of  great  experience  at  the  East  End  of  Lon- 
don, who  says  that  they  will  not  refuse  when  they  know  that  without 
the  workhouse  no  relief  is  possible.  If,  again,  it  is  objected  that  the 
workhouse  test  involves  the  violent  and  unnatural  separation  between 
children  and  parents,  the  answer  is,  that  the  children  will  be  better 
tended  in  the  workhouse  and  district  schools  than  in  an  imjDover- 
ished  and  destitute  home. 

Now  if  it  can  be  shown,  as  the  facts  just  enumerated  above  cer- 
tainly seem  to  show,  that  out-door  relief  has  a  tendency  to  act  as 
a  premium  on  pauperism,  and  as  a  discouragement  to  thrift,  exer- 
tion, and  independence  of  character,  it  follows  that  whatever  objec- 


PAUPERISM  AND    THRIFT. 

tions  can  be  urged  against  a  Poor  Law — against,  thai  is,  the  r  lief 
of  the  indigent  and  destitute  out  of  the  contributions  to  the  State 
made  by  those  who  are  comparatively  well-to-do— can  be  urged 
with  additional  force  against  the  practice  of  out-door  relief.  An- 
other appeal  may  be  made  to  the  experience  of  the  East  End  of 
London  in  support  of  this  view.  So  lorn;-  as  the  Easi  End  widows 
were  subsidized  by  payments  from  the  rates  they  were  able  to  com- 
pete with  the  seamstresses  on  terms  advantageous  in  a  certain  mis- 
erable way  to  themselves,  but  absolutely  ruinous  to  the  professional 
needlewoman.  Since  out-door  relief  has  become  the  rare  excep- 
tion, the  wages  of  the  class  for  whom  Hood  evoked  so  preci  tus  a 
stream  of  sympathy  by  the  "  Song  of  the  Shirt"  have  materially 
increased.  This  suggests  a  law  of  universal  application.  Success- 
ive reports  of  the  Local  Government  Board  show  that  "relief  in 
aid  of  wages"  exposes  the  independent  few  to  an  unfair  competition 
in  the  labor  market,  from  those,  who  relying  for  part  of  their  sup- 
port on  the  poor-rate,  can  afford  to  sell  their  labor  at  a  lower  price. 
Now,  as  Mr.  J.  R.  Pretyman,  in  an  able  and  comprehensive  treatise 
on  the  whole  subject,  under  the  title  of  "DispaujDerization,"  shows, 
this  is  what  mathematically,  and  on  a  priori  reasons  we  might  expect. 
"If  wages  were  left  to  be  regulated  wholly  by  an  adjustment  be- 
tween the  wants  of  the  wages-giver  and  the  wants  of  the  wages- 
taker,  with  no  element  like  that  of  poor-rates  or  other  taxation  to 
disturb  the  transaction,  wages  wordd  naturally  be  the  higher.  Ag- 
ricultural laborers,  in  particular,  cannot  fairly  expect  that  their 
wages  should  be  as  high  as  they  might  be  if  there  were  no  poor- 
rates,  since  land,  out  of  which  both  their  wages  and  these  rates  are 
paid,  can  only  bear  a  certain  amount  of  charges,  and  has  to  remu- 
nerate three  parties — the  owner,  the  occupier,  and  the  laborers  upon 
it.  Now,  the  owner  on  the  average  obtains  no  greater  interest  on 
the  value  of  his  land  than  from  two  to  three  per  cent. — that  is,  not 
more  than  he  could  obtain  by  investment  in  the  public  funds.  The 
occupier  makes  no  more  than  the  ordinary  mercantile  profit  on  the 
capital  and  skill  which  he  employs  in  agriculture;  indeed,  it  would 
seem  that  his  gains  are  less  than  those  of  successful  trajde,  for  sel- 
dom in  comparison  is  a  rich  farmer  to  be  found,  and  seldom  in  pro- 
bates of  wills  is  the  estate  of  a  farmer  "sworn  under"  amounts 
such  as  those  for  which  the  estates  of  merchants  and  other  trades- 
men weekly  figure  in  the  newspapers.  There  remains  a  third  por- 
tion of  the  proceeds  of  land,  and  from  this  portion  come  wages  l 
poor-rates.  If,  therefore,  the  landowner  is  to  have  his  moderal  ) 
interest,  and  the  occupier  his  fair  profit,  all  that  is  paid  from  the 
U 


210  ENGLAND. 

land  in  poor-rates  will  be  in  diminution  of  what  is  paid  in  wages. 
What  is  plus  in  rates  will  be  minus  in  wages."  * 

Nor  is  what  may  be  called  the  a  posteriori  evidence  on  this  point 
less  conclusive.  Reliance  on  the  poor-rates  operates  in  much  the 
same  way  with  the  working  classes  as  reliance  upon  the  indulgence 
of  a  wealthy  father  does  with  a  spendthrift  son.  It  is  very  well  to 
dilate  upon  the  humiliation  of  dependence  upon  the  rates  to  a  day- 
laborer,  to  urge  him  to  contribute  to  a  friendly  society,  so  that  he 
may  be  able  to  walk  erect  before  his  fellows  with  the  proud  con- 
sciousness of  being  a  self-supporting  institution.  But  these  argu- 
ments are  deficient  in  practical  cogency,  and  the  reply  of  the  sturdy 
son  of  toil  to  these  counsels  is  too  often  virtually  identical  with  the 
remark  which  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  once  placed  in  the  lips  of  the 
habitual  pauper,  that  "  there  can  be  no  friendly  society  so  good  as 
that  into  which  you  put  nothing  and  take  out  every  thing  " — the 
rates.  Education,  political  knowledge,  and  other  salutary  agencies 
may  modify  the  view  prevailing  among  the  working  classes  in  these 
matters.  At  the  present  moment  the  possibility  of  relief  from  the 
rates,  and  especially  of  out-door  relief,  enters  as  much  into  the  cal- 
culation of  thousands  of  English  laborers  who  are  about  to  marry, 
or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  about  to  get  drunk,  as  would  the  posses- 
sion of  a  series  of  good  investments  in  railway  stock  to  the  profes- 
sional man  who  was  making  his  future  arrangements.  Anticipatory 
reliance  on  the  poor-rates  acts  as  a  stimulant  to  illicit  intercourse 
and  to  an  early  and  improvident  marriage.  Pauperism  begets  pau- 
perism as  surely  as  crime  and  drink  make  criminals  and  drunkards. 
A  new  generation  of  j>aupers  is  thus  ever  sjmnging  up.  The  influ- 
ence which  reduces  the  rate  of  wages  continues,  the  demand  for  the 
necessaries  of  life  increases,  and  their  cost  is  raised.  Wages  are 
not  only  kept  down,  but  the  purchasing  power  of  wages  is  steadily 
lessened.  These  facts  wiU  sooner  or  later  be  clear  to  the  working 
classes  themselves.  "  I  have  reason,"  said  Mr.  George  Houlton,  him- 
self a  guardian,  at  a  Poor  Law  Conference  held  at  Leicester,  Novem- 
ber, 1875,  "  to  believe  that  some  of  the  best  men  who  have  emigrated 
from  North  Lincolnshire  have  done  so  from  a  determination  to  sep- 
arate themselves  from  a  burden  consequent  on  the  administration  of 
the  Poor  Laws,  rather  than  for  any  dissatisfaction  on  the  labor  ques- 
tion. One  of  the  best  men,  who  had  not  less  than  3s.  a  day  all  last 
winter,  left  me  in  the  spring,  and  told  me  he  was  determined  to 
leave  a  country  where  the  law  compelled  men  willing  to  work  to 

*  "Dispauperization,"  pp.  27,  28. 


PAUPERISM   AND    THRIFT.  211 

maintain  those  who  could  but  would  not  do  so."    The  relatione  be- 
tween the  poor-rates  and  labor  wages  are  not  now  minions  as 

I  they  were  before  the  Poor  Law  of  1834.  The  report  of  the  Coin- 
mission  which  preceded  that  measure  made  it  abundantly  clear, 
first,  that  the  pressure  of  the  poor-rates  threw  a  greal  deal  of  land 
out  of  cultivation — in  one  instance,  in  that  of  the  parish  of  Lenham, 
Kent,  the  poor-rate  on  420  acres  of  land  amounting  to  £300  a  year; 
secondly,  that  the  reduction  of  poor-rates  at  once  leads  to  the  rais- 
ing- of  wages.  But  the  principle  remains  the  same  now  as  it  was 
half  a  century  since. 

Facts  are  only  too  plentiful  to  show  the  systematic  manner  in 
which,  to  the  ruin  of  then-  own  dependence,  and  the  jeopardy  of  the 
finer  and  tenderer  feelings  implanted  in  them  by  nature,  the  work- 
ing classes  trade  upon  the  existing  provision  for  poor-relief.  The 
Rev.  G.  Portal,  of  Burghclere,  Hants,  told  his  hearers  at  a  recent 
Poor  Law  Conference  of  a  particularly  acute  and  audacious  tramp, 
who,  on  finding  himself  in  a  casual  ward,  at  once  insisted  on  having 
a  warm  bath.  He  was  refused.  "  Refer,"  was  his  immediate  com- 
ment on  the  refusal,  "to  Consolidated  Order  So-and-So,  and  you 
will  see  I  must  have  my  hot-water  bath.  Give  me  your  name,  please; 
I  shall  write  to  the  Local  Government  Board."  If  the  tram])  was 
within  his  legal  right  no  blame,  it  may  be  said,  can  attach  to  him  for 
enforcing  it.  But  the  same  astute  spirit  is  often  exhibited  in  an  at- 
tempt not  to  enforce  the  law  but  to  evade  it.  In  a  large  percent- 
age of  applications  made  by  women  for  out-door  relief  the  women 
are  deserted  wives.     Now  the  reports  teem  with  proofs  that  very 

<l  often  the  alleged  desertion  is  an  act  of  collusion  between  wife  and 
husband.  Take  the  following,  which  is  quoted  by  Mr.  Pretyman 
from  Mr.  Wodehouse's  Report  for  1S71-2.  "At  Plymouth,  where 
deserted  wives  are  as  a  rule  given  out-relief,  one  of  the  relieving 
officers  informed  me  that  he  had  found  cases  in  which  a  wife  had 
for  several  weeks  been  receiving  relief  while  her  husband  had  new  r 
been  out  of  town,  and  many  other  cases  in  which  the  wife,  whilst  in 
receipt  of  relief,  had  been  receiving  remittances  from  her  husband. 
Such  remittances  are  very  easily  made  without  the  knowledge  of  the 
relieving  officer."  The  door  is  opened  to  a  host  of  frauds  of  this 
description,  and  lax  administration  constitutes  a  direct  inducement 
not  only  to  unthrift  and  idleness,  but  to  deceit,  trickery,  and  impos- 
ture. It  is  an  equally  repulsive  and  indisputable  feature  in  the  - 
tern  that  it  weakens  the  ties  of  natural  duty,  destroys  the  sense  of 
mutual  responsibility  among  the  members  of  a  common  b  old, 

at  the  same  time  that  it  degrades,  brutalizes,  and  hard  n  ,     "The 


212  ENGLAND. 

burden,"  says  Dr.  Magee,  Bishop  of  Peterborough,  at  the  North 
Midland  Poor  Law  Conference,  held  in  1875,  "of  maintaining  an 
aged  parent  or  a  sick  parent  is  resented  by  children,  who  return  tc 
the  supplication  for  help  the  answer,  '  Go  upon  the  rates.' '  Dr. 
Magee  might  have  added,  what  the  Rev.  S.  A.  Barnett  subsequently 
pointed  out,  that  nowhere  is  filial  affection  stronger  than  among  Dr. 
Magee's  countrymen,  in  Ireland,  where  relief  is  scarce.  Mr.  Prety- 
man  cites  another  illustration  of  this  spirit  from  the  Report  of  the 
Poor  Law  Inspectors  to  the  Local  Government  Board  for  1874—5 : — 

'"On  the  day  on  which  I  attended  a  meeting  of  the  guardians  of 
the  West  Firle  Union,  an  application  was  made  under  the  following 
circumstances: — The  family  desiring  relief  consisted  of  the  follow- 
ing: An  old  man,  aged  67,  confessedly  past  work;  his  wife  ten  years 
younger,  earned  4s.  a  week;  an  unmarried  son,  aged  23,  living  with 
his  parents,  and  earning  13s.  6d.  a  week;  another  son,  aged  17,  also 
living  in  the  (parents')  house,  and  earning  10s.  a  week;  two  children 
under  eight  years  of  age.  It  appeared  to  me,  continues  the  Inspect- 
or, to  be  a  case  in  which  the  workhouse  ought  to  be  offered,  and 
that  in  the  case  of  its  being  accepted,  legal  proceedings  ought  to 
have  been  taken  against  the  eldest  son.  The  guardians,  however, 
granted  a  weekly  allowance  of  2s.  and  two  gallons  of  flour.  I  was 
surprised  to  find  that  in  several  other  unions  the  guardians  informed 
me  that  if  a  similar  case  was  brought  before  them,  they  would  not 
be  unwilling  to  grant  out-relief."  Such  is  the  Inspector's  statement; 
upon  which  it  may  be  observed  that  had  legal  proceedings  been 
taken  against  the  eldest  son,  who  was  living  with  his  parents,  and 
receiving  13s.  Gd.  a  week,  he  might  have  defeated  the  purpose  of 
those  proceedings  by  marrying,  and  pleading  his  inability  to  aid  in 
the  maintenance  of  his  parents."* 

To  a  similar  effect  is  the  testimony  of  the  Rev.  Canon  TVilles. 
"  I  know  that  in  many  cases  people  have  looked  with  astonishment, 
as  if  they  were  injured,  by  being  called  upon  to  support  those  who 
had  given  them  birth.  It  was  brought  to  my  notice  the  other  day, 
that  in  one  of  our  large  manufacturing  toAvns  there  is  actually  an 
association  formed  for  bringing  about  a  repeal  of  the  law  which 
'most  unjustly  and  cruelly'  as  they  allege,  calls  upon  children  to 
support  their  parents."  The  Scotch  Poor  Law  was  introduced  in 
1845.  How  has  it  worked?  "A  peasantry,"  says  Mr.  McNeil  Caird, 
"  who  in  my  recollection  were  sensitive  in  the  highest  degree  that 
any  of  their  kindred  had  received  parish  relief,  now  too  often  claim 

*  "Dispaivpcrization,"  pp.  48,  49. 


I 


PAUPERISM  AND    THRIFT.  213 

it  with  eagerness,  if  given  in  money,  though  they  still  look  upon  the 
poorhouse  as  degrading."  "The  change,"  says  a  former  overseer  of 
an  East  London  parish,  "that  is  made  in  the  character  and  habits 
of  the  poor  by  once  receiving  parochial  relief  is  quite  remarkable. 

They  are  demoralized  ever  afterwards."  Now  it  would  seem  as  if 
this  demoralization  had  a  tendency  to  be  hereditary.  "  The  regular 
applicants  for  relief  are  generally  of  one  family.  The  disease  is 
handed  down  from  father  to  son.  .  .  .  Whether  in  work 
out  of  work,  when  they  once  become  paupers,  it  can  only  be  by  a 
sort  of  miracle  that  they  can  be  broken  off." 

The  tendency,  then,  of  the  present  Poor  Law,  both  in  its  actual 
operation,  and  in  the  opinion  of  experienced  judges,  is  the  reverse 
of  beneficial.  It  is  inevitable,  but  it  is  inevitable  as  an  evil,  not  as 
a  good.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  some  who  argue  that  the 
Poor  Law  has  distinct  social  and  political  advantages.  "We  be- 
lieve," writes  the  Spectator,  June  15,  1878,  "  that  the  secret  of  the 
comparative  placability  of  the  English  peasantry,  and  the  little  suc- 
cess that  socialism  of  any  formidable  type  has  attaim  d  among  them, 
is  that  the  Poor  Law  has  kept  absolute  starvation  at  least  from  the 
door  of  the  poorest  class,  and  has  prevented  the  kind  of  scenes  and 
the  kind  of  sufferings  wdiich  make  the  life  of  the  poor  one  long  dread 
of  famine,  and  transform  humility  into  hate."  It  is  admitted  by 
those  who  think  in  this  way  that  the  Poor  Law  is  a  concession  1 1  > 
socialistic  feeling,  but  it  is  urged  that  its  influence  in  bridging  over 
the  gulf  that  separates  class  from  class,  and  in  creating  a  mutual 
sentiment  of  charity  and  good-will,  must  more  than  neutralize  any 
of  the  politically  perilous  views  which  it  may  seem  to  sanction.  But 
how  if  for  the  mechanical  charity  of  the  State  there  should  be  sub- 
stituted the  living  charity  of  the  individual '?  How  if  in  the  place 
of  compulsory  relief — in  other  words,  of  contributions  which,  in  the 
shape  of  rates,  cause  the  moderately  well-to-do  to  divest  themselves 
of  any  responsibility  for  the  poor — there  could  be  an  organized  sys- 
tem of  voluntary  assistance?  With  the  great  bulk  of  the  people  it 
cannot  be  supposed  that  a  Poor  Law  is  an  effective  instrument  for 
eliciting  a  sentiment  of  Christian  charity  and  benevolence.  Its  in- 
fluence, indeed,  upon  the  human  mind  will  at  best  be  found  li 
that  of  a  snow  house,  which  sometimes  succeeds  in  raising  the  tem- 
perature up  to  zero.  The  ordinary  British  ratepayer  is  certainly 
disposed  to  feel  that  he  compounds  for  the  charity  of  primitive 
times  by  a  lump  sum  under  the  heading  of  rates. 

But  whether  the  principle  of  a  Poor  Law  be  inherently  mis- 
chievous, as  most,  or  inherently  salutary,  as  a  very  few  believe,  it  is 


214  ENGLAND. 

not  likely  that  we  shall  hear  of  any  proposal  for  its  abolition,  or  that 
we  shall  find  the  imperial  legislature  issuing  any  absolute  prohibi- 

/  tion  of  the  system  of  out-door  relief.  As  regards  the  latter,  there 
is  an  overwhelming  preponderance  of  actual  testimony  and  of  skilled 
opinion  against  it.  Its  discontinuance  has,  wherever  it  has  been 
attempted,  been  followed  by  an  immense  decrease  in  the  annual 
rate  of  pauperism,  and  in  process  of  time  there  does  not  seem  any 
reason  why,  assuming  that  the  remedial  agencies  of  pauperism  are 
properly  developed,  out-door  relief  should  not  become  a  dead  let- 
ter. At  present  its  summary  stoppage  would  involve  a  serious  blow 
to  popular  feeling  in  every  district,  and,  for  a  reason  suggested  by 
Mr.  Stansfeld,  might  even  prove  inexpedient.  "  Once,"  says  this 
gentleman,  "  make  the  workhouse  test  universal,  and  you  will  have 
the  masses  accepting  it  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  is  only  the  cir- 
cumstance that  under  the  existing  system  there  is  a  distinction  be- 
tween kinds  of  pauperism,  making  the  'house'  the  badge  of  the  most 
hopeless  pauperism,  which  causes  so  many  to  shun  it  and  keep  out 
of  it.  As  matters  are,"  so  runs  Mr.  Stansfeld's  argument,  "  people 
make  an  attempt  to  get  out-door  relief.  If  they  succeed,  well  and 
good;  if  they  fail,  they  hesitate  before  they  find  an  asylum  in  the 
'  house,'  for  the  simple  reason  that  such  an  asylum  is  an  acceptance 
of  an  alternative  which  the  world  stigmatizes  as  humiliatmo-."  It 
will  be  seen  that  this  opinion  of  Mr.  Stansfeld  presupposes  that  the 
Poor  Law  is  satisfactorily  and  strictly  administered  by  the  guard- 
ians. It  is  the  lax  administration  of  the  law,  the  negligence  of  the 
guardians  themselves  and  their  officers,  which  aggravates  all  the 
costs  of  out-door  relief.  It  is  noticeable  that  some  of  the  most  un- 
compromising opponents  of  out-door  relief,  if  not  converted  by  the 
success  of  the  Elberfield  experiment  to  a  belief  in  its  efficacy,  have 
confessed  that  the  workhouse  test  can,  where  there  is  a  rigid  system 
of  personal  supervision  and  the  merits  of  every  case  are  thoroughly 
sifted,  be  dispensed  with,  considerably  to  the  public  gain. 

The  two  chief  antidotes  to  pauperism  are  the  organization  of 

!,  voluntary  help  and  the  organization  of  thrift.  The  former  move- 
ment has  resulted  in  the  establishment  of  Bureaux  de  Bienfaixauiv 
abroad,  in  France,  Germany,  and  in  other  countries  where  no  Poor 
Law  exists.  The  latter  is  embodied  in  England  in  the  various 
friendly  and  provident  societies.  The  one  represents  the  principle 
of  help  and  dependence;  the  other,  that  of  self-help  and  independ- 
ence. So  far  as  the  Continental  Bureaux  de  Bienfaisance  are  con- 
cerned, their  action  seems  to  be  identical  with  that  of  the  Poor  Law 
itself.     If  the  Poor  Law  discourages  thrift,  and  is  not  favorable  to 


PAUPERISM  AND    THRIFT.  216 

provident  societies,  so  also  are  the  Bureaux.  "Though  providenl 
societies,"  writes  Sir  Henry  Barron,  the  English  Secretary  of  Lega- 
tion at  Brussels,  "are  making  progress  in  Belgium,  it  is  found  very 

difficult  to  induce  Belgian  workmen  to  lay  by  a  sum  for  the  future, 
so  long  as  the  Bureaux  dc  Bienfaisance  offers  a  certain  pro^  ision  for 
old  age."  "It  is  found,"  we  read  in  the  consular  reports  from  Co- 
penhagen, "that  pauperism  increases  in  proportion  to  funds  pro- 
vided for  its  relief,  and  the  richest  provinces  have  mosi  paupers." 
It  is  calculated  that  the  friendly  societies  save  the  ratepayers  of 

'  the  United  Kingdom  two  million  pounds  sterling  ;i  year.  These 
friendly  societies  are  the  clubs  of  the  villages,  having  their  period- 
ical audits  and  their  annual  festivals.  Thev  are  to  the  English 
working  classes  in  town  and  country  what  life  and  accidental  assur- 

'  ance  societies  are  to  the  middle  class.  But  they  are  more  than  this. 
In  addition  to  the  occasional  assurance  of  annuities  for  life,  or  pay- 
ment of  a  lump  sum  at  death,  they  guarantee  also  the  payment  of 
a  fixed  periodical  sum  at  illness.  A  new  element  thus  enters  into 
the  calculation  of  the  actuaries  who  regulate  the  proportion  of  pre- 
mium to  policy.  Not  only  the  chances  of  death,  but  of  disease  or 
mishap,  incapacitating  for  work,  have  to  be  estimated,  and  unless  the 
rates  of  contributions  are  based  upon  sound  calculation  the  sock  ty 
is  doomed  to  insolvency.  It  is  a  further  necessity  that  the  funds  of 
these  societies  should  be  judiciously  and  remuneratively  invested. 
The  great  life  assurance  societies  of  London  would  not  be  so  pros- 
perous as  some  of  them  are  if  their  money  was  put  out  in  the  Post- 
office  Savings  Bank  at  2 J  per  cent.,  or  even  in  Consols  at  3.  Every 
halfpenny  must  in  fact  be  productive.  As  a  check  upon  such  ex- 
penditure or  investment,  there  must  be  periodical  valuation  and 
examination  by  an  actuary  into  the  position  of  the  club.  The 
Friendly  Societies  Act  of  1875  made  this  valuation  obligatory  every 
five  years.  The  same  measure  also  empowered  Government  to  ap- 
point public  accountants  and  actuaries  to  audit  accounts,  as  well  as 
to  value  the  assets  of  these  societies.  These  officers  are  now  ap- 
pointed. Unfortunately,  the  portion  of  the  Act  which  relates  to 
their  remuneration  and  employment  is  of  a  permissive  character. 
Clubs  are  allowed  to  select  their  own  auditors  and  valuers,  and  this 
privilege  may  be  so  exercised  as  to  rob  the  quinquennial  valuation 
of  its  virtue.  According  to  the  tables  recommended  by  the  Actua- 
rial Commission  of  the  Treasury,  a  payment  of  £1  8s.  6ol  a  year,  or 
7d.  a  week,  will  be  sufficient  to  secure  to  a  man  who  joins  a  club  in 
his  twenty-second  year  10s.  a  week  during  illness  up  to  the  age  of 
seventy,  a  pension  of  6s.  a  week  afterwards,  and  a  death  benefil  of 


216  ENGLAND. 

£10;  while  for  £1  ISs.  a  year,  or  9^d.  a  week,  he  can  secure  the 
same  benefit,  and  his  pension  may  take  effect  when  he  has  fulfilled 
threescore  and  five  years  instead  of  threescore  and  ten. 

Mr.  Macdonald,  the  parliamentary  representative  of  the  wages- 
earning  class,  has  given  it  as  his  opinion  that  "  friendly  societies 
may  be  of  great  use  in  teaching  the  people  to  dispense  with  the 
Poor  Law."  It  is  not  long  ago  that  some  Somersetshire  coal-min- 
ers, when  m'ged  to  join  a  club,  refused  because  they  "  preferred  the 
parish  pay."  If  the  alternative  of  membership  of  a  friendly  society 
had  not  been  parish  pay,  but  the  "  house,"  there  is  little  doubt 
which  would  have  been  selected,  and  that  the  ratepayers  would 
have  been  spared  the  burden  which  the  west-country  colliers  de- 
termined deliberately  to  inflict.  Just  as  it  is  the  business  of  the 
State  to  offer  every  inducement  it  can,  without  undue  interference 
with  individual  freedom,  to  the  working  classes  to  join  these  soci- 
eties, and  thus  at  the  same  time  that  it  inculcates  the  virtue  of  pru- 
dence, to  do  what  will  almost  certainly  have  the  effect  of  reducing 
the  burden  of  the  rates,  so  may  the  employers  of  labor  be  expected 
to  co-operate  in  this  matter  with  the  State.  In  Austria  large  em- 
ployers are  recpiirecl  to  create  an  assistance  fund  for  their  workmen, 
and  in  England  many  enrployers  have  done  this  of  their  own  accord. 
The  London  and  South- Western  Railway  Company  has  established 
a  friendly  society  to  give  relief  in  cases  of  sickness  or  death,  which 
counts  more  than  3,000  members.  The  same  principle  may  be  seen 
actively  recognized  and  operative  in  certain  departments  of  profes- 
sional life.  *  There  are  pension  funds  for  the  Indian  Military  and 
Civil  Services,  to  which  it  is  compulsory  to  contribute.  Why  then, 
it  may  be  asked,  should  it  not  be  compulsory  for  the  working  classes 
to  contribute  to  friendly  societies  ?  Why  should  not  the  employer 
make  membership  of  one  of  these  associations  a  condition  of  enter- 
ing his  employ?  In  the  first  place,  no  employer  would  consent  to 
do  any  thing  of  the  kind.  If  he  were  to  pledge  himself  to  such  a 
principle,  or  to  act  on  it,  he  would  infallibly  find  that  he  was  left 
in  the  lurch,  and  caused  serious  loss  and  inconvenience  at  some 
critical  stage  in  the  competition  for  labor.  Secondly,  were  the 
State  to  insist  upon  such  a  condition  as  has  been  suggested,  it 
would  manifestly  be  necessary  also  for  the  State  to  guarantee  the 
solvency  of  the  society.  Thirdly,  if  the  State  were  to  carry  its  pre- 
rogatives thus  far,  it  would  be  an  encroachment  upon  the  sensitive 
spirit  of  English  liberty  but  little  acceptable  to  the  English  charac- 
ter, and  calculated  to  promote  an  attitude  of  passive  dependence  on 
the  State,  entirely  antagonistic  to  the  idea  of  self-help. 


PAUPERISM  AND    THRIFT.  217 

It  lias  before  now  been  suggested  that  the  responsibility  of  pro- 
tecting the  members  of  friendly  societies  should  resl  with  the  Guard- 
ians of  the  Poor.     The  proposal  is  open  to  the  same  objectii  >n  as  thai 

of  the  State  guarantee,  and  to  additional  objections  also.  It  is  true 
that  to  some  extent  the  purpose,  and  to  a  great  extern1  the  effect,  of 
these  associations  is  to  make  their  members  independent  of  the  rules. 
But  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  patronage  of  the  Poor  Law  would 
deter  many  working  men  with  an  independent  spirit  from  join- 
ing them,  and  would  degrade  them  to  the  resort  of  a  pauperized 
residuum. 

The  present  attitude  of  the  law  towards  friendly  societies  sup- 
plies a  curious  exception  to  that  active  interference  which  has  be- 
come the  rule  in  many  other  matters  of  a  social  urgency  scare*  Ly 
greater.  For  nearly  a  century,  since  the  year  1793,  friendly  soci- 
eties have  been  legislated  for  by  Parliament.  Notwithstanding  all 
this  legislation,  their  legal  status  is  very  little  (-hanged.  The  Act  of 
1793  left  registration  voluntary;  so  did  the  Act  of  181'.),  which, 
amongst  other  important  provisions,  enacted  that  the  justices  in 
Quarter  Sessions  should  no  longer  be  permitted  to  confirm  i 
rides  of  societies  until  they  had  been  approved  by  two  persona 
known  to  be  professional  actuaries,  or  skilled  in  calculation.  In 
1827  the  affairs  of  friendly  societies  were  discussed  before  a  Com- 
mittee of  the  House  of  Commons.  An  Act  passed  in  1829  indical 
the  transition  stage  from  local  to  central  control,  and  transfers  to 
the  barrister  nominated  to  certify  the  rules  of  savings  banks,  the 
certification  of  the  rules  of  friendly  societies.  The  supreme  power 
was  still  retained  by  the  magistrates,  who  ultimately  confirmed  or 
rejected  the  society's  tables;  nor  was  it  till  1846  that  the  i  a  of 

the  office  of  Registrar  of  Friendly  Societies  removed  them  from  the 
control  of  the  justices,  and  established  a  complete  system  of  central- 
ization.    But   registration  was  still  permissive.     Frequ<  nlly,   e\ 
when  the  rules  had  been  registered  and  certified,  they  were   n   t 
enforced.     The  annals  of  friendly  societies  are  full  of  tales  of  I 
utter  wretchedness  brought  by  fraudulent  management   of  funds 
upon  families  who  had  invested  all  their  savings  in  them,  in  ord 
that  they  might  keep  together  and  escape  the  workhouse.     An   Let* 
not  without  beneficial  results,  for  better  government  of  these  insti- 
tutions was  passed  in  1854;  another  Act  in  1875,  of  which  a  compe- 
tent authority — the  Piev.   W.   V,'.   Edwards  * — says  that,   "though 
heralded  with  a  vast  amount  of  anticipatory  laudation,  in  J  it 

*  Contemporary  Review,  167G. 


218  ENGLAND. 

did  little  or  nothing  to  settle  the  difficulty  of  the  question."  The 
subject,  in  fact,  is  still  treated  as  it  always  has  been,  pernrissively; 
fur  registration  is  not  compulsory,  and  many  of  the  provisions  of  the 
Act  are  not  enforced  by  any  tine.  The  principle  of  the  law — namely, 
that  every  registered  society  shall  act  openly  with  regard  to  its 
members  and  the  public — is  indeed  admirable.  But  considering 
that  very  nearly  one-fourth  of  the  population — over  eight  millions, 
and  that  the  most  defenseless  and  impoverished  part  of  it — are  in- 
terested in  these  societies,  and  that  32,000  societies,  of  which  12,000 
are  not  registered — in  other  words,  are  not  subject  to  any  kind  of 
State  control — have  fnnds  of  not  less  than  £11,000,000  sterling  at 
then*  disposal,  it  may  well  be  questioned  whether  something  more 
should  not  be  done.  These  societies,  it  must  be  remembered,  are, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Post-office  Savings  Bank,  almost  the  only 
opportunities  of  the  investment  of  capital  which  the  working  man 
has.  They  give  him  an  income  in  sickness,  and  they  give  his  widow 
enough  to  start  her  on  a  new  way  of  life  at  his  death.  If  the  State 
offered  the  working  man  an  alternative  investment,  it  would  be  a  dif- 
ferent matter.  The  only  alternative  that  it  does  offer  is  Poor  Law 
relief.  Thus  the  State  steps  in  with  an  inducement  to  pauperism, 
but  not,  as  it  would  do,  if  indirectly  it  put  down  rotten  friendly  so- 
cieties, with  an  inducement  to  thrift.  In  France  there  exist  facilities 
for  the  investment  of  the  smallest  sums  in  public  securities  or  land, 
in  England  there  do  not.  In  country  districts  the  inducements  to 
thrift  are  still  further  minimized  by  the  fact  that  the  working  man 
or  woman  who  has  a  shilling  or  two  to  put  by  often  has  to  go  three 
or  four  miles  before  a  Post-office  Savings  Bank  can  be  found.  If 
the  State  declined  to  interfere  generally  in  matters  relating  to  the 
personal  welfare  of  the  working  man,  the  objection  of  successive 
Governments  to  compel  the  registration  of  friendly,  societies  would 
be  intelligible.  Such  compulsion,  be  it  said,  would  not  involve  any 
more  responsibility  than  the  State  has  already  taken,  if  responsibil- 
ity it  can  be  called,  in  the  case  of  life  insurance  societies,  which  when 
they  are  starting  for  the  first  time,  it  requires  shall  deposit  £20,000 
before  business  can  be  legally  carried  on.  Again,  as  a  matter  of  fact 
the  State  does,  in  these  matters,  interfere  habitually.  It  interferes  to 
prevent  a  man  employing  his  wife  and  children  to  support  him  by 
factory  labor;  it  compels  him  to  send  his  children  to  school;  it  places 
certain  restrictions  on  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors,  of  drugs  and 
poisons,  on  adulteration  of  food.  On  what  ground,  then,  can  it  be 
denied  that  the  State  has  the  authority  to  restrict  the  opj>ortunities 
which  dishonest  speculators  now  have  of  cheating  the  working  man, 


PAUPERISM   AND    THRIFT. 

or  how  can  it  be  said  that  the  same  guarantee  which,  h\  ng 

the  deposit  above  named,  the  State  exacts  from  life  in  iuranc» 

ties  in  the  interests  of  the  middle  classes,  it  should  not  <  also  in 

the  interests  of  the  lowest  class  of  all? 

In  the  State  of  New  York,  Mr.  Edwards  tells  us,  c. 
office  is  under  strict  Government  supervision,  and  mends 

four  reforms  for  application  to  friendly  so*  ulsory 

registration;  second,  compulsory  adoption  of  a  limit  in  scales  of  pay- 
ments and  benefits;  third,  audit  and  valuation  bj  a  ■'  k>v<  rnmi  a\  offi- 
cial; fourth,  the  winding-up  of  every  society  proved  to  be  in  a  hope- 
lessly insolvent  position.  How  pressing  these  wants  arc.  may  be 
judged  from  the  condition  of  the  Manchester  Unity  of  Odd  Fellows 
in  1871.  That  society,  which  is  a  national  boon,  and  which  is  a 
model  for  imitation,  was  found  in  1871,  when  the  Odd  Fellows 
themselves  voluntarily  instituted  a  valuation  of  assets  and  liabili- 
ties— like  that  which  is  required  from  only  registered  societies — to 
have  a  deficiency  of  £1, 1350,000,  though  even  then  the  society  was  in 
a  position  to  discharge  nearly  ninety  per  cent,  of  its  liability  9. 

The  popularity  of  penny  banks  seems  to  show  how  real  is  the 
anxiety  of  the  working  classes  to  save,  and  how  genuine  is  the  want 
which  it  supplies.'  In  the  case  of  one  of  these  institutions  the  num- 
ber of  deposits  during  the  year  1877  increased  by  71,802,  the  amount 
deposited  by  £187,911.  Forty-four  additions  were  made  to  the  num- 
ber of  branches,  and  in  some  instances  applications  for  branches  had 
to  be  refused,  in  consequence  of  the  applicants  living  beyond  the 
limits  fixed  by  the  articles  of  the  association.  How  minute  in  its 
sums,  and  how  large  in  its  extent  was  the  business  done,  may  be 
seen  from  the  fact  that  in  twelve  months  791,873  dep  sits  were 
made,  their  aggregate  reaching  a  total  of  £650,714.  Each  deposi- 
tor thus  must  have  saved  on  the  average  something  Less  than  a 
sovereign,  and  it  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  but  for  this  bank 
these  small  amounts  would  have  found  their  way  to  the  public- 
house  till. 

These  things  are,  however,  but  the  machinery  of  thrift — the  ma- 
chinery which,  indeed,  if  rightly  employed,  will  go  far  to  minimize 
or  stamp  out  pauperism,  but  which  requires  the  spirit  of  I '  Q- 

erally  diffused  throughout  the  working  classes  to  secure  its  full  i 
It  is  much  that  penny  banks  and  Post-office  Savings  Banks  should 
be  as  numerous  as  they  are  in  England.     Thrift  is  a  rirtu<   whir!), 
strengthened  by  practice,  is  pre-eminently  inculcated  by  • 
The  Enghsh  working  classes  are  singularly  quick   to  catch  up  the 
ways  of  then-  social  superiors.     They  not  only  imitate,  but  tfa 


220  ENGLAND. 

caricature.  It  is  in  matters  economical  as  in  others,  the  man  repro- 
duces the  extravagance  of  the  master,  the  maid  of  the  mistress,  the 
employed  of  the  employer.  Can  it  be  said  that  relatively  the  En- 
j  ;•  I  isli  working  classes  are  not  as  thrifty  as  any  other  portion  of  the 
population  ?  Grant  that  they  are  a  little  less  saving;  have  they  not 
greater  temptations  to  and  excuses  for  improvidence  ?  It  is  in  the 
prospect  of  a  definite  reward,  as  a  compensation  for  self-denial,  that 
the  inducement  to  small  economies  is  to  be  found.  This  prospect 
the  English  working  classes  either  have  not,  or  do  not  sufficiently 
realize. 

But  may  we  not  hope  that  the  necessary  reforms  are  on  the  high 
road  towards  accomplishment  ?  Co-operation,  which  will  be  con- 
sidered in  the  next  chapter,  is  as  yet  in  its  infancy,  but  already  co- 
operation has  worked,  as  we  shah  see,  marvels.  The  saving  which 
co-operation  has  secured  to  the  working  classes  has  been  calculated 
from  10  to  20  per  cent.  And  this  economy  only  represents  a  small 
part  of  the  advantages  of  the  system,  which,  as  will  be  seen  from  the 
survey  of  it,  are  quite  as  much  moral  as  material. 


[Note. — It  seems  fair  to  supplement  what  has  been  said  in  this  chapter  on 
the  subject  of  the  thrift  or  thriftlessness  of  the  working  classes,  with  a  few  facts 
and  figures  of  great  interest  and  importance,  given  by  an  undoubted  and  expe- 
rienced authority,  Mr.  George  Howell,  in  an  article  in  the  nineteenth  Century  en- 
titled, "Are  the  Working  Classes  improvident?"  "The  only  method,"  remarks 
the  writer,  "by  which  the  truth  or  the  untruth  of  the  charge  laid  against  the 
working  classes  as  to  their  improvidence  may  be  arrived  at,  is  by  furnishing 
data  as  to  the  actual  wages  received  and  the  relative  cost  of  living,  and  also  by 
bringing  forward  such  evidence  with  regard  to  the  thrift  of  the  working  man  as 
may  be  shown  by  their  savings  in  banks,  their  investments,  their  various  provi- 
sions for  old  age,  sickness,  and  trade  depressions."  Mr.  Howell  then  asks, 
"  What  are  the  average  earnings  of  a  workman?  It  is  useless  (he  says),  illogical, 
and  unfair,  to  quote  the  current  wages  in  any  particular  trade  or  district,  with- 
out making  due  allowance  for  the  inevitable  deductions — such  as  non-employ- 
ment for  a  month  or  two  every  year,  sickness,  etc.  If  a  man  earns  £2  a  week, 
and  yet  is  liable  to  be  out  of  work  one  month  in  each  year,  it  is  only  right  to 
consider  that  he  earns  £96  per  annum  instead  of  £104."  Having  traced  the 
gradual  progress  in  the  rate  of  wages  for  the  last  thirty  years,  and  the  corre- 
sponding variation  of  prices — estimating  the  former  at  9s.  4d.  a  week — equal  to 
about  0O5  per  cent,  on  the  30s.  paid  in  1847,  Mr.  Howell,  deducting  4s.  or  5s.  a 
week  for  casualties,  fixes  the  wages  of  a  skilled  operative  at  35s.  per  week, 
or  £91  a  year.  The  average  family  of  a  working  man  numbers  about  five — 
self,  wife,  and  three  children — and  thus  there  are  five  to  be  housed,  fed,  chlhed, 
warmed,  and  educated,  and  perhaps  doctored.  This  involves  a  payment  of  5s.  lOd. 
a  week  for  rent,  or  £15  3s.  4d.  per  annum,  and  Is.  8d.  per  week  for  coal,  and  Gd. 
a  week  for  schooling;  and  also  Is.  a  week  to  society  or  club,  to  which  most  work- 
men belong.     After  thus  deducting  9s.  a  week  from  35s.,  there  is  left  26s.  with 


PAUPERISM  AND    THRIFT.  ...,, 

which  to  feed  ana  clothe  five  persons,  which  will  be  done  al  fh    rateoflfo  to, 

the  man,  6s.  far  his  y,  u,.  and  3s.  for  each  child,  leaving 

expenses.     On  viewing  these  figures  there  appears  to  I 

extravagance     With  regard  to  thrift  or  provision  for  the  future,  thefollowina 

statistics  are  the  best  answer:-l.   There  are  26,087   friendly  aocieti    ,   reds- 

tiered,  and  several  unregistered,  with  a  total  of  3, 

gregate  funds  amount  to  £9,3:36,949.     2.  Loan  Societi    i,  373;  i 

accumulated  funds,  £155,065.    3.  Building  Societies,  396;  fund      emgoW 

4.  Provident  Societies,  1,163;  members,  420,024;  accumulated  funds    rc'iv,'  v,'; 

5.  Trade  unions  registered,  215;  members,  277,115;  fun  ,;    'J.IV' 
ings  Banks:   Trustee's  Savings   Banks,   463;   depositors,    1,493,401;   deposits 
£43  283,700     Post-office  Savings  Banks,  5,488;  depositors,   3,166,136;  depo 
(inclusive  of  interest),  £26,996,550  10s.  3d.     Railway                               ,:  ,,' 
tors,  7,898;  accumulated  funds,  £153,512.     These  are  strictly  confined  tonu] 
way  employes.     The  grand  total  shows  that  there  are  about  10,121,694  deposi- 
tors, and  that  the  accumulated  funds  amount  to  no  less  than  £100,705,055  1 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

CO-OPERATION. 

Two  Illustrations  of  the  Co-operative  Principle:  Victoria  Street,  London,  and 
Toad  Lane,  Rochdale — General  Comparison  between  the  Conduct  of  differ- 
ent Co-operative  Stores — Feelings  to  which  the  Co-operative  Principle 
amongst  the  Working  Classes  in  England  originally  appealed — Nature  of 
the  Enthusiasm  which  it  created — Views  advanced  at  the  first  Co-operative 
Congress  in  1852— Co-operative  Wholesale  Society — Co-operation  among 
the  Middle  and  Upper  Classes — The  Civil  Service  Supply  Association:  Its 
Origin.  Organization,  and  Progress — Other  Co-operative  Societies  and  their 
Development — The  Civil  Service  Co-operative  Society — The  Army  and  Navy 
Co-operative  Society — Effects  of  Co-operation  upon  the  Labor  Market — - 
General,  Social,  and  Moral  Advantages  of  Co-operation — Educational  In- 
fluences of  the  Movement — How  far  Co-operation  is  applicable  to  Produc- 
tion as  well  as  Distribution — The  Exceptional  Success  of  the  Assington  Ex- 
periment— General  View  of  Progress  and  Position  of  Co-operation. 

THE  two  scenes  which  we  are  now  about  to  witness  are  bound 
together  by  a  definite  connecting  link.  The  social  and  local 
conditions  in  each  case  may  be  widely  different,  but  the  principle 
illustrated  is  the  same.  Few  greater  contrasts  could  exist,  so  far  as 
appearances  are  concerned,  than  between  Victoria  Street,  West- 
minster, and  Toad  Lane,  Rochdale.  Nor  are  the  particular  build- 
ings in  the  two  thoroughfares,  which  we  shall  successively  enter, 
frequented  by  persons  between  whose  exterior  or  whose  state  of 
life  much  resemblance  can  be  traced.  At  the  same  time  the  pa- 
trons of  each  are  animated  by  the  common  motive,  and  have  dis-, 
covered  that  the  end  in  view  can  be  best  secured  by  nearly  identical 
methods.  The  method  is  that  of  co-operation,  and  though  the  man- 
ner in  which  it  is  carried  out  in  the  capital  and  in  the  Lancashire 
manufacturing  town  varies,  while  it  represents  in  the  latter  more  of 
social  advantage,  and  more,  also,  of  moral  enthusiasm  than  in  the 
former,  the  different  aspects  of  the  enterprise  may  still  not  inappro- 
priately be  placed  side  by  side.  It  is  about  three  o'clock  in  .the 
afternoon,  and,  in  the  course  of  a  walk  from  Victoria  Station  tow- 
ards the  Houses  of  Parliament,  down  a  long,  gaunt  street,  with 


CO-  OTERA  TION.  j  j  1 1 

huge  mansions,  containing  flats,  or  lawyers'  offices,  or  the  chambers 
of  colonial  and  parliamentary  agents,  one  notices,  midway  on  the 
right-hand  side,  rows  of  carriages  and  cabs,  two  or  three  deep, 

drawn  up  in  front  of  a  handsome  block  of  buildings.     Every  1 
of  vehicle  that  can  be  bought  or  hired  in  London  is  here  -from 
the  open  barouche  or  closed  brougham,  with  their  thorough-b 

horses,  to  the  carriage  jobbed  by  the  month,  or  let  out  by  the  b \ 

as  well  as  the  hackney  cab,  hansom,  or  four-wheeler.     Footmen  and 
coachmen  are  stationed   at  the  doors,   through  which  there   p 
ladies  and  gentlemen— some  on  the  point  of  transacting  their  busi- 
ness, others  having  completed  their  purchases,  which  are  car;      I 
by  servants  to  the  purchasers'  carriages. 

The  establishment  is  not  only  an  emporium,  but  a  lounge,  a 
place  of  gossip  and  pleasure,  as  well  as  of  business.  One  enters, 
and  finds  grizzled  warriors  seated  at  a  table,  drawing  up,  with  mucli 
<  deliberation,  a  list  of  them  intended  purchases.  Close  beside  there 
is  a  young  matron,  new  to  housekeeping,  whose  husband  has  just 
received  his  promotion,  and  who  is  intent  upon  making  a  limil  I 
sum  go  as  far  as  possible.  Around  and  about  these,  passing  to  or 
coming  from  the  different  counters,  are  groups  of  well-dress<  d  buy- 
ers, who  have  been  giving  orders  for  every  sort  of  article  that  their 
households  or  drawing-rooms  can  need.  There  are  many,  too,  who 
seem  to  have  no  thought  of  buying  any  thing,  or  who,  if  they  have 
fulfilled  the  object  with  which  they  ostensibly  came  hither,  linger 
on,  with  no  other  visible  aim  than  to  meet  their  friends  and  discuss 
the  news  or  scandal  of  the  day.  Precisely  the  same  thing  is  goi 
on  upon  the  story  above,  and  above  that  again  until  the  third  or 
fourth  floor  is  reached.  The  goods  sold  vary  according  to  the 
elevation  of  the  department  above  the  level  of  the  street.  In  each 
there  is  the  same  mixed  crowd  of  buyers,  the  same  social  chatter, 
the  same  interchange  of  compliments,  the  same  applications  to  the 
cashier  to  make  out  bills.  There  is  also  a  refreshment  room  on  the 
premises  for  the  benefit  of  customers  who  may  recniire  a  light  lunch; 
or,  if  it  be  afternoon,  as  we  are  now  supposing  it  to  be,  may  like  to 
sip  the  comforting  cup  of  "five  o'clock  tea."     The  placi  ■■i, 

discharges  not  a  few  of  the  purposes  of  a  club  for  ladies  ami 
men;  it  gratifies  the  prevailing  passion  for  combining  pleasure 
business,  and  gives  the  customers  of  the  store  the  sati  Faction  of 
knowing,  that  at  the  same  time  they  meet  their  friend- 
getting  their  wares — whether  it  be  an  ormolu  clock  or  a  jar 
pickles — at  a  cheaper  rate  and  of  better  quality  than  they  could 
elsewhere. 


.  224  ENGLAND. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  Toad  Lane,  Rochdale.  The  hour  is  seven 
o'clock  on  Saturday  evening.  There  are  swarms  of  factory  hands, 
with  their  wives  and  children,  passing  and  repassing  from  one  shop 
to  another,  for  in  Toad  Lane  there  is  not,  as  there  is  in  Victoria 
Street,  a  concentration  of  many  shops  into  one.  All,  however,  be- 
long to  the  same  society,  and  the  Rochdale  Pioneers  do  a  business 
as  comprehensive  in  its  way  as  that  of  the  naval  and  military  co- 
operators,  or  the  Civil  Service,  in  London.  There  are  no  luxurious 
carriages  waiting  outside  the  premises  in  Toad  Lane,  no  footmen, 
powdered  or  unpowdered,  standing  sentry  at  the  door,  no  commis- 
sionaires calling  for  cabs,  or  smart  page-boys  laden  with  parcels 
bringing  up  the  rear.  Though  here,  as  in  Victoria  Street,  there  is 
much  general  conversation  between  the  buyers,  there  is  little  loiter- 
ing about,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  dominant  spirit  of  the  place 
is  one  of  business.  At  the  counter  of  one  shop  there  are  attendants 
drawing  treacle,  packing  parcels  of  sugar,  and  refitting  the  empty 
shelves;  on  the  pavement  outside  are  at  least  a  dozen  persons  wait- 
ing to  take  their  turn,  and  a  similar  spectacle  may  be  noticed  at 
intervals  throughout  the  whole  street.  Immediately  opposite  the 
grocery  store  is  one  for  drapery,  where  a  dozen  women  of  varying 
ages  are  selecting  articles;  next  door  but  one  is  a  still  larger  shop, 
in  which  huge  joints  of  meat  are  being  cut  and  sold;  while  in  another 
department  of  the  same  house,  flour,  potatoes,  and  butter  are  being 
weighed  out.  Close  by  tailors  and  shoemakers  are  attending  to  their 
customers.  Next  door  to  the  butcher's  shop  is  a  watch  club,  and 
immediately  adjoining  this  is  the  library,  whose  officers  are  hard 
at  work,  exchanging,  renewing,  and  delivering  books.  A  marked 
feature  in  the  scene,  and  a  significant  commentary  upon  the  real 
value  of  the  institution,  is  the  number  of  children.  The  working 
classes  seldom  or  never  send  children  to  shops  on  errands  of  an 
important  character,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  are  afraid  lest 
the  sellers  should  impose  upon  their  ignorance  and  innocence.  In 
the  stores  all  have  confidence,  and  they  know  that  no  distinction  of 
persons  is  made. 

There  are  many  points  of  difference,  other  than  those  which 
relate  to  the  personnel  of  their  patrons,  between  the  London  and 
the  Rochdale  co-operative  establishments.  Even  the  co-operative 
stores  in  London  themselves  are  not  uniformly  conducted  upon  one 
principle.  Though  the  business  done  by  the  Army  and  Navy  Stores 
in  Victoria  Street  is  not  as  great  as  that  of  the  Civil  Service  Supply 
Association,  there  is  in  the  former  instance  more  of  the  ordinary 
trading  system  than  in  the  latter.     It  is  practically  open  to  any 


CO-  OPERA  r/OAT.  J  J  g 

person  to  become  a  member  of  the  Victoria  Street  establishmi    I 
At  the  present  day,  no  new-comer  to  the  Civil  Service  Su]  «o- 

ciation,  if  he  is  not  a  civil  .servant,  can  obtain  the  enjoymenl  of  .-ill 
its  privileges;  nor,  indeed,  will  it  be  easy  for  him  to  belong  to  th<  m 
on  any  terms  unless  he  is  nominated  by  a  shareholdi  r.     Th<  re  are 
other  so-called  co-operative  stores  in  London,  which  have  nothing 
,  whatever  in  their  management  to  entitle  them  to  the  name.     They 
are  simply  the  enterprises  of  private  individuals  <>r  companies,  \ 
believe   that  the   name   co-operation  is  one  to  conjure  with,   and 
■who  employ  it  as  a  synonym  for  cheapness.     That  co-operation 
often  been  the  cause  of  cheapness  in  other  establishments,   w! 
have  nothing  really  co-operative  about  them,  cannot  be  doubted. 
The  effect  which  the  institution  of 'these  stores  has  had  upon  trades- 
men, has  redounded  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  all  classes  of  1m  >  era. 
They  have  introduced  a  new  element  of  competition,  and  have  com- 
pelled tradesmen  largely  to  reduce  them  prices  for  ready-money 
customers. 

While  every  dealer  at  the  Eochdale  stores  is  a  shareholder,  th<  re 
are  many  members  of  the  London  stores  who  have  no  vested  inter- 
est in  the  concern  whatever.     They  have  purchased  their  admission 
ticket  to  it  on  the  recommendation  of  a  friend,  who,  perhaps,  is  a 
shareholder,  and  the  oidy  practical  disadvantage  at  which  they  find 
themselves  is,  that  they  have  no  claim  to  participation  in  the  pro! 
or  to  the  gratuitous  conveyance  of  their  purchases  to  their  homes. 
A  further  and  very  important  distinction  between  such  co-operative 
societies  in  London  as  those  at  which  we  have  glanced,  ami  a  co- 
operative society,  like  the  Equitable  Pioneers,  is  that,  in  the  • 
of  the  latter,  there  is  none  of  the  necessary  antagonism  which,  in 
the  case  of  the  former,  exists  between  the  store  and  the  ordinary 
tradesman.     In   London   the   object   of  the   store   is  to  undersell 
the  tradesman;  in  the  provinces,  at  Eochdale  and  elsewhere,  it   is 
'  not  to  do  this,  but  to  sell  at  the  price  current  in  the  neighborhood, 
the  advantage  offered  by  the  store  being,  in  the  first  place,  the  best 
goods  which  the  money  paid  can  command;  in  the  second  a  sir 
inducement  to  thrift.     For  example,  the    Rochdale  stor 
only  an  aggregate  of  well-supplied,  well-conducted  shops,  hut 
actually  or  potentially  savings  hanks  as  well.     Every  member  being 
a  shareholder,  shares  in  an  equal  degree  in  the  profits,  and  the  only 
surplusage  which  at  the  end  of  the  year  there  is  to  be  divided 
amongst  the  shareholders  is  that  to  which  every  member  is  | 
portionately  entitled.     It  follows  that  there  are  greater  inducem 
to  economical  management  hi  Eochdale  or  Halifax  than  in  London. 
15 


226  ENGLAND. 

At  either  of  the  former  places  every  sixpence  spent  upon  salaries 
and  wages  represents  an  increase  of  expenditure  upon  the  article 
purchased.  So,  no  doubt,  it  does  in  London,  but  where  all  do  not 
share,  as  in  London  they  do  not,  in  the  margin  of  profit  left  outside 
working  expenses,  this  fact  can  scarcely  be  practically  realized  with 
the  same  degree  of  force. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  of  stating  the  difference  between  co-opera- 
tion, as  it  exists  amongst  the  higher  and  the  lower  classes  of  English 
society,  will  be  to  say  that  in  the  former  it  represents  the  principles 
of  expediency  and  economy,  and  nothing  more ;  and  that  in  the  latter 
it  is  at  once  associated  with,  and  is  symbolical  of,  a  very  material 
advance  in  the  general  condition  of  the  working  classes.  The  naval 
or  military  officer,  the  civil  servant,  the  nobleman,  the  distinguished 
official,  a  whole  host  of  gentlemen,  who,  in  the  London  season, 
divide  their  days  pretty  equally  between  their  offices,  clubs,  and 
other  resorts  of  business,  fashion,  or  pleasure,  go  to  the  stores, 
because  they  believe,  or  profess  to  believe,  that  in  going  thither 
they  are  making  their  purchases,  in  a  not  disagreeable  way,  in  the 
cheapest  market.  The  doctrine  which  they  thus  recognize  is  one 
simply  of  personal  convenience ;  there  is  no  more  moral  fervor  about 
the  whole  proceeding  than  there  is  about  the  calculations  of  a  party 
whip  in  the  House  of  Commons,  while  a  party  debate  is  in  progress. 
At  the  establishment  of  the  Civil  Service  Supply  Association,  the 
economical  idea  may  be  pronounced  wholly  in  the  ascendant;  at 
the  Army  and  Navy  Stores,  in  Victoria  Street,  there  is  a  strong 
focus  of  social  attraction  as  well.  In  both  instances  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  the  stores  are  patronized  by  many  people,  especially 
ladies,  who  really  like  the  excitement  of  the  atmosphere,  and  the 
occupation  given  by  shopping  under  exceptionally  agitating  condi- 
tions. Others  there  are  who  fail  to  find  any  allurements  in  a  more 
pronounced  degree  of  bustle  and  disturbance  than  they  would  en- 
counter at  those  shops  where  their  personal  identity  is  not  in  immi- 
nent danger  of  bein'e  lost  amidst  a  chaotic  multitude  of  customers. 
Yet  these  in  many  instances  go  to  the  stores,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  they  know  that  by  purchasing  for  ready  money  their  goods  in 
person  they  are  not  charged,  as  in  some  shops  they  practically  are, 
interest  on  the  outstanding  accounts  of  credit  customers,  or  the  cost 
of  the  commission  which,  in  the  shape  of  Christmas  gratuity  or 
quarterly  fee,  the  tradesman  often  pays  the  head  servants  of  large 
private  establishments.  But  even  amongst  the  hard-worked  civil 
servants  of  the  Crown  there  cannot  be  any  thing  like  the  consuming 
enthusiasm  which  is  the  soul  of  the  co-operative  movement  amongst 


1 
A 


CO-OPERATION.  007 

the  laboring  classes.  The  truth  is,  that  the  planes  oil  which  co- 
operation moves  in  either  instance  differ  as  greatly  as  <!<>rs  tin* 
social  condition  of  its  votaries.     To  live  cleanly,  soberly,  and  b 

estry  is  confessedly  regarded  as  a  mark  of  distinction  among 
working  classes.  "When  one  goes  higher  in  the  social  scale,  | 
conventional  assumption  is  that  it  is  no  distinction  at  all.  Thus  it 
is  with  co-operation,  thrift,  and  the  power  of  responsible  manage- 
ment. With  the  well-to-do  they  are  either  not  exceptional  virtues 
at  all,  or  if  they  are,  it  is  polite  to  ignore  the  fact.  "With  the  work- 
ing man  it  is  admitted  by  his  condescending  patrons — who  might 
sometimes  be  his  pupils — that  they  constitute  a  distinct  claim  to 
admiring  recognition. 

Nothing  more  need  here  be  indicated  than  the  chief  principles, 
or  the  central  ejrisocles  and  stages,  of  that  co-operative  movement, 
which  has  a  history  and  a  literature  of  its  own.*  In  estimating  the 
influences  of  English  co-operation,  it  is  necessaiy  to  remember  that 
it  had  its  origin  in  something  very  like  fanaticism,  and  that  its  first 
apostles  held  out  to  then*  followers  an  ideal  too  visionary  for  actual 
attainment.  It  is  these  historical  associations  which  have  given  to 
the  movement  that  degree  of  moral  impetus  without  which  it  could 
scarcely  have  been  driven  onward  as  rapidly  as  it  has  been.  If  the 
co-operation  in  England  had  known  no  other  motive  than  the  eco- 
nomical, if  the  only  appeal  which  it  had  made  to  its  votaries  was 
based  upon  unsentimental  considerations  of  supj>ly  and  demand,  it 
could  never  have  acquired  so  strong  a  hold  upon  the  working 
classes.  A  fanatical  or  an  exaggerated  enthusiasm  lies  with  En- 
glishmen at  the  bottom  of  every  great  popular  cause;  the  fanaticism 
passes  away,  but  a  genuine  residuum  of  energy  remains.  Long 
before  the  Rochdale  Equitable  Pioneers  opened  their  store  in  Toad 
Lane  in  1844  with  £20  worth  of  goods,  Owen  had  made  his  experi- 
ment, and  that  experiment  had  been  generally  stigmatized  as  a  fail- 
ure. But  if  its  influences  are  prospectively  estimated,  it  cannot  be 
considered  as  a  failure  in  any  way.  for  it  really  generated  the  enthu- 
siasm without  which  co-operation  would  never  have  been  taken  up. 
Then  it  wTas  that  the  doctrines  which  Owen  held,  and  which  ho  en- 
deavored to  translate  into  practice,  were  destined  to  yield  a  pd 
humous  harvest. 

Just  as  in  the  human  constitution,  selfishness  and  sympathy  are 
the  two  mutually  compensating  principles,  so  has  co-operatioD  act  1 
in  civil  society  at  large  as  the  counter-influence  to  the  principle  of 

*  "The  History  of  Co-operation,"  in  two  volumes,  by  Mr.  Jacob  Holyoakej 

a  very  valuable  work,  to  which  I  am  much  indebted  in  tl  r. 


228  ENGLAND. 

trades  unionism.  Competition,  it  was  said  in  the  Leader  newspaper 
thirty  years  ago,  as  developing  in  England,  must  destroy  in  the  end 
"both  family  life  and  industrial  prosperity.  It  was  this  apprehension 
which,  quite  as  much  as  the  obvious  economical  doctrine  that  it 
would  be  to  the  advantage  of  the  working  classes  to  buy  then  wares 
in  the  cheapest  market,  caused  several  gentlemen  and  clergymen  of 
the  Church  of  England  energetically  to  promote  the  movement. 
These  claimed  support  for  it  on  the  ground  that  it  represented 
nothing  less  than  the  practical  application  of  Christianity  to  the 
purposes  of  trade  and  industry.  In  the  official  reports  of  the  earlier 
meetings  of  the  Central  Co-operative  Society — the  Association  for 
Pi'omoting  Industrial  and  Provident  Societies — one  finds  resolutions 
couched  in  language  whose  sincerity  is  above  suspicion,  and  which 
sufficiently  testifies  to  a  high  elevation  of  moral  aim.  Thus  at  the 
conference  held  on  the  state  of  the  society  in  Great  Castle  Street, 
London,  July,  1852,  it  was  unanimously  resolved  by  its  delegates 
"  that  this  conference  entreats  all  co-operative  establishments  .  .  . 
to  sell  all  articles  for  exactly  what  they  know  them  to  be,  and  to  ab- 
stain .  .  .  from  the  sale  of  articles  known  to  be  adulterated, 
even  if  demanded  by  then  customers."  The  following  year  it  was 
formally  laid  down  that  the  principles  of  the  association  were — - 
"  That  human  society  is  a  body  consisting  of  many  members,  not  a 
collection  of  warring  atoms.  That  true  workmen  must  be  fellow- 
workers,  and  not  rivals.  That  a  principle  of  justice,  and  not  of  self- 
ishness, must  govern  exchanges." 

Nor  did  more  prosaic  and  practical  points  fail  to  receive  their 
due  measure  of  consideration  and  discussion.  Chief  amongst  these 
was  the  payment  of  managers  and  of  laborers  employed  by  associa- 
tions. The  resolution  was  arrived  at — that  "  the  principle  of  giving 
a  share  of  the  profits  to  all  who  had  shared  in  the  work  was  essen- 
tially just,"  and  that  if  this  were  not  done  the  chief  characteristic  of 
co-operative  societies  would  be  lost.  It  was  uj)on  this  occasion  that 
at  the  festival  which  followed  the  conference,  the  president,  the  late 
F.  D.  Maurice,  observed  that  "  human  nature,  Christianity,  and  co- 
operation, alike  taught  that  men  must  be  controlled  by  moral  law, 
and  until  that  was  acknowledged  the  continual  fighting  of  man 
against  man,  employer  against  employed,  would  never  cease.  As 
soon  as  the  law  was  proclaimed  and  observed  that  men  should  help 
one  another,  and  live  for  one  another,  and  that  so  only  could  they 
live  for  themselves,  society  would  be  kept  in  union  by  a  power 
mightier  than  selfishness,  industrial  associations  would  be  the  in- 
struments of  the  moral  education,  translating  those  principles  into 


CO-  OPERA  TION.  229 

the  business  of  practical  life."     Twelve  years  later,  the  machim 
of  co-operation  was  supplemented  by  the  promotion  of  a  Co-opera- 
[    tive  "Wholesale  Society,  to  which  it  was  intended  that  local  stor< 
should  be  affiliated,  procuring  thence  the  articles  that  they  retailed 

to  their  customers.  Starting  with  a  capital  of  £999,  it  made  a  small 
loss  of  £39  in  its  first  half-year,  followed  in  the  next  by  a  profit  of 
£306.  The  result  of  its  fourteen  years  trading  shows  that  on  the 
12th  of  January,  1878,  there  were  844  provincial  societies  which  h 
or  have  accounts  with  the  Co-operative  Wholesale  Society.  Th< 
societies  purchased  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  year  1877,  £080,811 
worth  of  goods  for  the  three  departments  in  which  the  central  so- 
ciety is  now  organized,  viz. — grocery  and  provisions,  drapery,  hoots 
and  shoes,  and  furniture.  The  cash  receipts  for  the  same  period 
from  all  sources  amounted  to  £1,415,580,  and  the  business  done  in 
the  year  to  £2,827,052.  Again  in  1800,  two  years  after  it  started, 
the  Wholesale  -Society  established  branches  for  purchase  of  produce 
at  Tipperary,  at  Killmallock  in  1808,  at  Limerick  in  1809,  at  Clon- 
mel  in  1874,  at  New  York  in  1870,  and  at  Cork  in  1877.  Besides 
the  Manchester  establishment,  there  exist  local  centers  in  London, 
Newcastle,  and  Liverpool,  a  biscuit  factory  at  Crumpsall,  a  shoe  fac- 
tory at  Leicester,  and  soap  works  in  Durham.  The  Wholesale  So- 
ciety has,  in  fact,  become  the  commercial  backbone  of  the  move- 
ment, and  is  a  crucial  instance  of  the  capacity  of  the  working  classes 
for  managing  large  affairs.  It  was  at  the  time  that  this  society  was 
established  that  a  co-operative  movement  in  another  direction  took 
place,  and  that  the  attempt  which  we  have  already  seen  to  organize 
consumption  for  the  upper  and  professional  classes  on  the  same  lines 
was  made. 

The  Civil  Service  Supply  Association,  which  now  does  the  largest 
co-operative  business  among  the  middle  and  the  upper  classes  of  the 
country,  was  established  in  1800.     Its  origin  was  simple,  and  in  a 
great  degree  the  result  of  a  happy  accident.     The  excessive  retail 
price   charged  for  tea  induced   a  gentleman  in  the   Post-office  to  ' 
obtain  a  chest  of  it  on  wholesale  terms.     This  he  kept  in  a  cell" 
below  the  office,  and  distributed  its  contents  as  wanted  to  a  few  of 
his  personal  friends  in  the  department.     Comparison  of  quality  and 
price  not  only  was  followed  by  a  much  larger  demand  for  the  ar- 
ticle than  it  was  convenient  to  supply  in  this  primitive  fashion,  but 
brought  into  prominent  relief  the  advantages  that  would  be  secured 
if  the  system  were  extended.     In  consequence,  a  few  of  the  offici 
v   combined  to  start  the  Post-office  Supply  Association,  its  members 
being  strictly  limited  to  employes  of  the  department.     The  project 


230  ENGLAND. 

was  found  to  work  so  advantageously  that  very  soon  it  was  deter- 
mined to  diffuse  its  advantages  throughout  the  entire  service;  and 
in  February,  18G6,  the  Civil  Service  Supply  Association  (Limited) 
was  established  under  "  The  Industrial  and  Provident  Societies  Act, 
1802."  The  capital  was  limited  to  £2,250  in  4,500  shares  of  10s. 
each,  and  although  modifications  have  been  frequently  entertained 
the  amount  of  capital  stock  still  remains  the  same.  From  its  com- 
mencement the  association  has  progressed  steadily.  The  sales, 
which  in  the  first  year  (1866)  amounted  to  £21,822,  increased  in 
the  next  to  £83,405,  in  1877  had  passed  a  million  sterling,  in  1878 
reached  a  total  of  £1,390,000.  Nor  did  the  fact  that  in  the  second 
year  of  the  enterprise  two  of  the  directors  seceded  and  unsuccess- 
fully set  on  foot  another  store  appreciably  arrest  this  rapid  de- 
velopment.  On  this  large  turnover  the  gross  profit  {%.  e.,  the  differ- 
ence in  the  price  paid  to  the  producer  and  that  charged  to  the 
member)  averages  8-|  per  cent.  Of  this  percentage  0|  to  7  per 
cent,  goes  in  working  expenses,  leaving  1-|  to  2  per  cent,  for  profit 
to  the  shareholders.  The  exjienses  of  working,  estimated  in  the 
dealings  of  1878,  come  to  no  less  than  £90,000;  but  when  it  is  ex- 
plained that  the  amount  paid  in  that  year  for  salaries  of  the  em- 
ployes was  very  little  short  of  £70,000,  some  notion  will  be  formed 
of  the  vastness  of  the  organization  and  the  economy  of  its  manage- 
ment. In  this  connection  it  may  be  said  that  not  only  is  every 
thing,  as  a  matter  of  course,  bought  for  prompt  cash,  but  the 
producer  is  invariably  treated  with  directly.  This  system,  when 
combined  with  that  of  keeping  the  percentage  of  profits  at  the 
level  named,  gives  rise  to  certain  anomalies.  The  producers  of 
certain  articles,  known  throughout  the  world,  whatever  advantage 
in  price  they  may  be  willing  to  concede  the  association  in  considera- 
tion of  the  extent  of  the  transactions,  stipulate  that  their  goods  shall 
not  be  resold  at  less  than  certain  market  quotations.  Hence,  on 
such  goods  a  very  large  profit  is  made,  and,  as  a  consequence,  the 
prices  of  other  articles  are  reduced  so  as  to  equalize  the  percentage 
of  profit  throughout  the  department.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
are  well-known  goods  which  cannot  be  sold  at  prices  below  those 
quoted  by  retail  traders,  who  selling  such  articles  without  profit 
seek  to  impress  their  customers  with  the  belief  that  their  prices 
generally  are  on  a  level  with  those  of  the  co-operative  stores.  As 
an  example,  the  familiar  custom  of  selling  sugar  at  or  under  cost 
is  not  adopted  by  the  association,  whose  quotations  for  this  article 
are  consequently  comparatively  high.  But  in  all  articles  of  food 
the  purchaser  at  the  stores  has  the  great  advantage  of  a  guarantee 


CO-  OPERA  T/OAT.  231 

of  purity.     It  is  a  special  feature  of  those  institutiona  thai  every 
thing  is  examined  by  a  qualified  analyst,  permanently  employed 

for  the  purpose. 

Iu  the  sum   named  as  the  annual  turnover,   no  estimate   has 
been  included  of  the  sales  made  by  the  tradesman  affiliated  to  I 
society  who  deal  directly  with  the  members,  allowing  on  pur< 
a  discount  varying  from  10  to  2.1  per  cent.     It  is  calculate 
these  come  to  between  £3,000,000  and  £4,000,000  annually,  tl  • 
being  about  400  firms  so  affiliated,  some  of  which  have  individually 
sold  more  than  £00,000  worth  of  goods  in  a  given  twelve  mont 
The  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  shopkeepers  to  ava 
of  the  privilege   does  not   diminish;  but  of  the  many  desirous  of 
admittance   to    the    association's   list,   only  those    who   are   able   to 
satisfy  a  most  rigid  scrutiny  of  their  standing  are  successful,  and 
more  than  half  the  applicants  are  as  a  rule  rejected.     It  should  be 
added  that  some  of  the  very  first  West  End  firms  have  shown  no 
wish  to  identify  themselves  with  the  movement. 

The  direction  is  composed  of  fifteen  gentlemen,  who  each  receive 
as  remuneration  200  guineas  per  annum.     They  are  <  .lum- 

bers of  the  Civil  Service,  and  take  an  active  part  in  the  ma  .-nt 

of  the  stores,  generally  attending  cxevy  afternoon,  when  they  divide 
themselves  into  committees  for  different  purposes.  To  the  secre- 
tary, who  acts  also  as  general  manager,  falls  the  chief  superint<  nd- 
ence,  and  he  has  directly  under  and  responsible  to  him  the  depart- 
mental managers — the  latter  being  invariably  highly  competent  mi 
in  receipt  of  salaries  varying  from  £300  to  £600  per  annum.  It  will 
be  obvious  that  the  original  capital  of  the  association  would  be  to- 
tally inadequate  to  work  a  business  of  this  extent,  and  which  pri- 
marily turns  on  cash  payments.  The  necessary  means  are  provided 
by  accumulations  of  profits.  The  reserve  fund  to  August,  1874, 
showed  such  an  accumulation  to  the  extent  of  £93,205;  and  a  later 
one,  to  June  30th,  1878,  called  the  guarantee  account,  an  additional 
sum  of  £103,805.  If  to  these  two  sums  be  added  the  capital  stock, 
the  total  is  within  a  fraction  of  £200,000,  one  moiety  of  which  is  in- 
vested in  buildings,  the  other  available  as  working  capital  The 
question  of  a  division  in  whole  or  part  of  these  accumulate  d  profits 
amongst  the  shareholders  has  been  throughout  and  is  si  ill  a  di 
culty.  The  accumulation  to  August,  1874,  was  set  apart,  as  has  been 
shown,  because  the  opinion  of  eminent  counsel  concurred  thai  it 
could  not  be  distributed.  As  the  matter  now  stands,  it  is  contem- 
plated to  create  additional  fully-paid  shares  to  repre  Benl  the  amount 
of  the  accumulations  for  allotment  to  the  presenl  shareholders     'I 


232  ENGLAND. 

original  10s.  shares  are  transferable  to  qualified  persons  in  the  same 
way  as  any  ordinary  share,  and  consequently  have  a  high  value, 
which  will  be  considerably  higher  when  a  solution  of  this  question 
is  formed,  and  current  profits  can  be  paid  in  dividends. 

Naturally,  the  association  has  had  many  followers  in  the  path 
which  it  has  struck  out.  The  operations  of  even  the  most  successful 
of  these  have  not  in  any  way  impeded  the  progress  of  the  original 
society,  which  numbered  on  December  31st,  1878,  36,000  members, 
of  whom  23,000  pay  annually  2s.  or  5s.,  the  remainder  consisting  of 
shareholders  and  then  special  nominees.  The  Civil  Service  Co-ope- 
rative Society  was  originally  formed,  as  has  been  said,  by  the  seces- 
sion of  some  directors  of  the  Supply  Association.  Its  offices  are  in 
the  Haymarket,  and  its  organization  and  general  features  are  iden- 
tical with  those  of  the  society  of  which  it  is  an  offshoot.  In  the  first 
year  of  its  career  the  turnover  was  £15,000,  in  1878  £505,000.  The 
number  of  members  is  at  present  13,000  and  it  should  perhaps  be 
observed  that  these,  whether  share  or  ticket  holders,  are  strictly 
limited  to  qualified  persons.  The  original  capital,  as  in  the  other 
society,  is  extremely  limited,  being  nominally  £5,000,  of  which  only 
£2,000  is  paid  up,  and  in  the  same  way  it  finds  its  working  funds 
from  accumulated  profits.  On  the  31st  December,  1878,  those  placed 
to  the  reserve  fund  amounted  to  £75,000,  of  which  comparatively  a 
small  portion  only  is  invested  in  buildings.  The  scheme  which  the 
original  association  has  in  view  has  afready  been  partly  carried  out 
by  its  younger  sister.  The  reserve  fund  has  been  apportioned  in 
bonus  shares  amongst  the  shareholders,  but  as  yet,  it  is  understood, 
the  payment  of  a  dividend  on  these  new  shares  is  only  under  consid- 
eration. The  average  net  profit  is  the  same  as  that  realized  by  the 
Supply  Association;  the  working  expenses  are  perhaps  fractionally 
higher,  but  not  more  so  than  might  be  expected  from  the  cost  of  the 
staff  of  a  more  limited  business. 

The  progress  made  by  the  Army  and  Navy  Co-operative  Society 
is  not  less  proportionately  rapid.  The  sales  during  the  first  year  of 
its  existence  amounted  to  £130,280;  during  the  seventh  year,  that 
which  ended  January,  1879,  they  reached  a  total  of  more  than  a 
million  and  a  half.  In  all,  during  this  septennial  period  the  sales 
exceeded  considerably  five  millions,  and  the  gain  to  members  of  the 
association  must  be  confuted  at  not  less  than  one  million.  The 
dividend  paid  to  shareholders  in  this  society  is  only  five  per  cent, 
and  the  surplus  funds  are  devoted  to  a  constant  reduction  of  prices. 
If  we  are  to  consider  the  effect  of  this  and  kindred  institutions  not 
only  upon  their  members,  but  on  the  community  at  large,  two  things 


OF 


UfflV 


CO-OPERA  TI01 


■     71 


are  clear:  in  the  first  place,  the  money  saved  is  not  lost  toeinu'.i- 
tion,  but  diverted  into  other  channels,  though  sometimes,  perhai 
of  less  productive  expenditure;  in  the  second  place,  there  is  the 
same  demand  for  labor  under  the  co-operative  regime  us  there  would 
be  if  the  monopoly  of  the  tradesman  had  never  been  challenged. 
Many  of  the  amusements  and  luxuries  of  life  which  were  inacc<  i- 
ble  to  the  possessors  of  fixed  incomes,  so  long  as  they  paid  credit 
prices  for  the  necessaries  of  life,  are  now  placed  within  their  reach, 
and  there  is  pocket-inoney  to  spare  for  amusements  and  indul- 
gences— the  concert,  the  theater,  and  hire  of  cabmen  and  garden- 
ers. As  regards  the  relations  between  co-operative  stores  and  na- 
tional industry,  there  is  in  the  former  plenty  of  erupkynient  lor  the 
latter.  There  are  heads  and  foremen  of  department  who  but  for 
the  stores  woidd,  no  doubt,  have  set  up  as  tradesmen  on  their  oavu 
account — as  a  matter  of  fact,  many  have  been  tradesmen.  Further, 
to  some  extent  these  associations  co-operate  not  merely  in  the  work 
of  distribution,  but  of  production  as  well.  The  Civil  Service  Sim- 
ply Association  has  long  made  its  own  drugs;  chemicals,  and  a  few 
other  articles.  The  Army  and  Navy  has  gone  much  further  in  that 
direction,  and  has  large  workshops  for  the  manufacture  of  portman- 
teaus, dressing-bags,  purses,  and  other  leathern  goods,  tin-work,  ja- 
panned ware,  cabinets,  as  well  as  printing  and  die-sinking  works. 
In  all,  employment  is  thus  provided  for  close  upon  2,000  hands. 
,"  The  society,"'  says  the  secretary,  "  has  been  compelled  to  adopt 
this  expedient  by  the  difficulty,  and  almost  in  some  instances  impos- 
sibility, of  procuring  really  sound  and  good  articles  that  could  be 
confidently  warranted  to  its  members,  owing  to  the  system  of  scamp- 
ing and  concealing  defects.  The  results  have  quite  kept  pace  with 
the  most  sanguine  expectations.  The  prices  have  been  reduced,  the 
members  are  satisfied,  and  the  working  men,  many  of  them  the  best 
in  their  respective  trades,  are  well  content.  As  an  illustration  of 
this  it  may  be  related  that  a  director  conversing  with  one  of  them  a 
few  days  ago  inquired  how  he  liked  his  employment,  and  received 
the  reply  ' Very  much.'  'Why  so?'  he  then  asked.  'Because,  sir, 
I  have  regular  work.  Before  I  came  here  I  made  bags  which  I  sold 
to  a  factor.  He  would  put  on  a  large  profit  and  sell  them  to  a  shop- 
keeper, and  before  they  reached  the  regular  customers  my  price  v. 
more  than  doubled.  And  then  T  often  had  two  or  three  idle  days  ;it 
a  time,  as  I  cordd  not  sell  my  work.  But  now,  owing  to  the  small 
profit  put  on  by  the  stores,  I  suppose  there  are  a  hundred  bags  sold 
where  there  used  not  to  be  ten;  and  I  have  regular  employment  and 
no  idle  time.'     'But  how  do  you  like  the  rule  which  prevents  In    r 


234  ENGLAND. 

being  taken  into  the  workshops  ? '     '  "Well,  sir,  I  didn't  like  it  at  first, 
but  now  I  am  used  to  it,  and  it  has  saved  me  a  lot  of  money.' "  * 

There  is,  however,  another  side  to  this  particular  question. 
While  co-operative  manufacture  secures  the  immense  advantage  of 
a  uniform  excellence  in  quality,  the  means  at  the  command  of  the 
larger  manufacturers,  their  experience  and  personal  interest,  enable 
them  to  produce  goods  which  offer  little  margin  for  competition. 

Independently  of  the  great  economical  boon  which  co-operation 
in  distribution  has  been  to  the  working  classes,  it  has  brought  with 
it  moral,  intellectual,  and  political  advantages  of  the  highest  value. 
It  has  taught  working  men  how  to  act  together,  to  differ  on  de- 
tails without  disagreeing  as  to  principle,  to  dissent  without  mutual 
separation,  and,  in  spite  of  sundry  divergencies  of  opinion,  steadily 
to  combine  together  with  a  common  purpose  in  view.  The  periodi- 
cal meetings  of  the  shareholders  in  these  stores  are  sometimes  agi- 
tated by  stormy  debates,  but  the  discussion  ends  in  a  schism  far 
less  frequently  than  in  the  practical  recognition  of  the  truth  that 
toleration  is  a  necessity  of  life.  Again,  all  efforts  at  self-improve- 
ment and  "self -reform,  having  an  elevating  tendency,  co-operation,  as 
belonging  to  this  class  of  enterprise,  has  raised  the  views  of,  and 
implanted  healthy  ambition  among  the  laboring  population.  "  The 
improved  condition,"  writes  one  of  the  chief  leaders  of  the  co-opera- 
tive movement,  "of  our  members  is  apparent  in  their  dress,  bearing, 
and  freedom  of  speech.  You  would  scarcely  believe  the  alteration 
made  in  them  by  their  being  connected  with  a  co-operative  society." 
"  The  whole  atmosphere,"  says  Mr.  Holyoake,  "  is  honest.  Those 
who  serve  neither  hurry,  finesse,  nor  flatter;  they  have  no  interest  in 
chicanery;  they  have  but  one  duty  to  perform — that  of  giving  fair 
measure,  full  weight,  and  a  pure  article."  Teetotalers  recognize  in 
the  store  an  agency  of  incalculable  worth  for  teaching  the  virtues  of 
sobriety.  Husbands  who  never  knew  what  it  was  to  be  out  of  debt 
and  wives  who  previously  never  had  a  spare  sixpence  in  their  pockets, 
now  go  to  market — the  market  being  their  own  property — with  well- 
filled  purses,  and  with  a  belief  in  their  own  capacities  to  ameliorate 
their  condition.  "Many  married  women,"  continues  Mr.  Holyoake, 
"  become  members  because  then  husbands  will  not  take  the  trouble, 
and  others  join  the  store  in  self-defense,  to  prevent  the  husband 
from  spending  their  money  in  jirink.  Many  single  women  have  ac- 
cumulated property  in  the  store,  which  becomes  a  certificate  of  their 
conjugal  worth,  and  young  men  in  want  of  prudent  helpmeets  con- 

*  See  an  article  by  Mr.  J.  H.  Lawson,  entitled  "Co-operative  Stores,"  a  reply 
to  shopkeepers,  in  the  Nineteenth  Chdury,  February,  1879. 


CO-  OPERA  TIO  AT.  2 !  1 5 

sider  that  to  consult  the  books  of  the  store  is  the  1  ems  «>f 

directing  their  selection."  Briefly,  a  Bhare  in  a  co-operative  store  ia 
calculated  to  give  its  holder  a  consciousness  of  some  definite  aim  and 
purpose  in  life.     Every  member  of  the  society  is  som  cap. 

italist;  the  share  has  a  definite  mercantile  value;  a    I  bove 

that,  there  are  the  dividends,  paid  quarterly,  on  bh<   purchases. 

The  co-operative  movement  has  also  taught  the  working  classes 
of  England  what  mutual  confidence  can  do.  With  few  exceptions, 
the  business  of  these  stores  is  conducted  upon  the  strict  lv- 

money  principles  When  societies  have  allowed  credit  they  have 
often  been  wrecked,  and  the  mischief  which  one  such  failure!  has 
done  to  the  entire  movement  can  scarcely  be  exaggerated.  The 
trust  which  the  working  classes  now  repose  in  their  stores  has  re- 
ceived striking  and  sometimes  rather  pathetic  illustrations.  Ml. 
Holyoake  tells  the  story  of  a  shopkeeper  who  came  to  a  woman,  a 
member  of  the  Equitable  Pioneers,  admonishing  her  to  draw  out  the 
£±Q  which  she  had  in  the  societv  at  once,  as  it  was  sure  to  break. 
The  answer  was,  "Well,  if  it  does  break  it  will  break  with  its  own; 
it  has  all  been  saved  out  of  my  profits;  all  I  have  it  has  given  i 

The  educational  value  which  these  stores  possess  is  not  only 
moral  and  social,  but  literary  and  intellectual  While  they  have 
united  the  working  classes  in  beneficent  efforts  for  their  own  im- 
provement, they  have  generated  a  new  sense  of  citizenship,  they 
have  even  been  utilized  as  a  machinery  for  providing  instruction 
of  the  higher  kind  for  their  members.  To  the  reading-rooms  and 
lending  libraries — such  as  we  have  seen  in  the  course  of  our  visit  to 
the  Equitable  Pioneers  in  Toad  Lane — there  have  been  added  clat 
in  French,  science,  and  art.  Only  in  a  few  instances,  however,  are 
these  co-operative  societies  doing  a  distinctly  educational  work,  and 
it  may  be  doubted  how  far,  in  view  of  the  numerous  independent 
educational  agencies,  such  as  university  extension,  lecture  societies, 
institutes,  and  the  ladies'  improvement  associations  that  exist  in 
Leeds,  Birmingham,  and  other  towns — associations,  as  the  aame  im- 
plies, for  teaching  the  women  of  the  working  classes  the  rudiments 
of  household  economy  and  domestic  hygiene — it  is  pra<  ticable  i 
these  further  responsibilities  should  be  at  all  generally  assumed. 

As  to  the  future  of  co-operation  in  England  there  are  two  dis- 
tinct sets  of  opinions.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  maintained  thai  il  ifl 
not  likely  to  render  any  fresh  specific  service;  thai  in  having  sup- 
plied the  working  population,  as  well  as  their  social  superiors  with 
an  exceedingly  effective  machinery  for  the  economical  distribution 
of  the  necessaries  and  luxuries  of  life,  it  has  done  all  i  aid 


236  ENGLAND. 

reasonably  be  expected;  that  if  to  this  we  add  its  success  in  incul- 
cating the  virtues  of  frugality  and  thrift,  we  have  entirely  exhausted 
the  list  of  its  possible  good  works.  On  the  other  hand,  experienced 
enthusiasts  like  Mr.  Thomas  Hughes,  and  others,  who  have  made 
co-operation  their  special  study,  are  persuaded  that  the  movement, 
if  not  in  its  infancy,  is  still  in  its  youth,  and  that  there  are  before 
it  great  opportunities  of  usefulness  as  yet  undeveloped.  The  prime 
question  is,  whether  ifc  is  in  the  nature  of  things  possible,  that  the 
principle  of  co-operation  should  be  applied  to  production  with  any 
thing  like  the  same  results  realized  in  the  case  of  distribution.  The 
experiment,  indeed,  has  often  been  made,  but  scarcely  with  sufficient 
success  in  any  considerable  number  of  cases  to  justify  the  assertion 
that  the  co-operative  principle  is  destined  to  solve  the  problem  of 
labor  versus  capital.  The  mutual  distrust,  which  is  too  often  the 
characteristic  of  the  laboring  classes,  and  which  offered  serious  ob- 
stacles to  the  successful  working  of  the  co-operative  stores  in  their 
earlier  days,  has  not  yet  been  overcome  in  the  matter  of  co-opera- 
tive production.  A  fair  days  wage  for  a  fair  day's  work  is  their 
motto,  and  the  working  man  prefers  to  labor  for  an  employer,  whom 
he  holds  responsible  for  his  pay,  and  from  whom  he  knows  that, 
when  the  day's  work  is  done,  he  wall  receive  it,  to  engaging  in  a 
venture  with  his  fellows,  on  the  chance  that  success  in  their  efforts, 
in  the  more  or  less  remote  future,  wall  enable  them  handsomely  to 
remunerate  themselves.  Thus  it  is  that  when  co-operative  mills 
have  been  started,  each  worker,  being  entitled  to  share  equally  in 
the  profits,  they  have  generally  ended  by  becoming  joint-stock  com- 
panies, in  which  only  a  very  limited  number  have  been  proprietors. 
In  one  notable  instance  the  co-operative  principle  has  been  ap- 
/  plied  with  the  happiest  results  to  agriculture.  Fourteen  years  be- 
fore the  commencement  of  the  enterprise  of  the  Rochdale  Pioneers, 
a  Suffolk  squire,  Mr.  Grurden,  of  Assington,  selected  sixty  acres  of 
land  of  medium  quality,  furnishing  them  with  a  homestead,  and  let- 
ting them  out  to  a  company  of  shareholders — all  taken  from  the 
class  of  farm-laborers — who  put  £3  apiece  into  the  concern,  while 
Mr.  Gurdcn  himself  advanced  a  sum  of  £400,  without  interest,  on 
loan.  In  18G7,  the  number  of  shareholders  had  risen  from  fifteen 
to  twenty-one,  the  land  held  had  increased  from  60  to  130  acres,  and 
each  of  the  shares  was  worth  £50.  In  addition  to  this,  the  company 
had  paid  back  Mr.  Gurden  all  his  money,  and  the  stock  and  imple- 
ments on  the  farm,  the  former  consisting  of  six  horses,  four  cows, 
110  sheep,  thirty  or  fort}7  pigs,  were  the  exclusive  property  of  the  co- 
operators.     The  rent  of  the  land  was  £200  per  annum,  and  the  farm 


CO-  OPER.  1  r/OAT.  237 

was  held  on  a  forty-four  years'  lease.     The  bu  siness  was  and  is  man- 
aged by  a  committee  of  four,  some  of  whose  members  could  noi  i iv< 
read  or  write,  but  the  practical  direction  of  the  farm  rests  with  the 
bailiff — himself  a  co-operator — who  is  paid  a  shilling  a  week  above 
the  ordinary  rate  of  wages. 

Even  if  it  be  held  that  the  success  of  the  Assington  experiment 
is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  exceptional,  and  that  co-operative  pro- 
duction upon  any  large  scale  is  impracticable,  all  such  undertakings 
may  claim  the  credit  of  an  undoubtedly  beneficial  tendency,  and  are 
necessarily  calculated  to  promote  an  improvement  in  the  relations 
between  capital  and  labor.  Workmen  Avho  take  part  in  such  enter- 
prises acquire  the  habit  of  looking  at  industrial  problems  from  the 
employers'  point  of  view,  gradually  perceive  that  there  are  many 
difficulties  in  trade  and  manufacture  to  which  they  have  hitherto 
been  strangers,  and  that  ta  such  questions  as  piece-work,  overtime, 
hours  of  labor,  there  are  two  sides.  Thus  productive  co-operation, 
not  less  than,  as  we  have  seen,  distributive,  may  be  regarded  as  the 
compensating  principle  to  unionism. 

On  the  whole,  it  is  well  that  we  should  estimate  co-operation 
rather  by  the  work  it  has  actually  done  than  by  that  which  sanguine 
visionaries  consider  it  may  still  accomplish.  It  is  enough  to  know 
that  it  has  organized  and  elevated  the  life  of  the  masses,  has  im- 
mensely improved  their  social  position,  has  implanted  in  them  the 
germs  of  a  new  morality,  and  a  disposition  which  is  fruitful  of  prom- 
ise in  the  future  relations  of  capital  and  labor.  Further,  co-opera- 
tion has  made  the  struggle  for  existence  easier,  existence  itself  hap- 
pier and  better  for  half  a  million  of  Englishmen,  in  the  course  of 
twenty-five  years.  A  sum  of  upwards  of  £5,000,000  of  capital  forms 
the  stock  of  the  working-class  co-operative  societies.  These  soci- 
eties not  merely  sell  goods  of  the  best  quality,  on  reasonable  tern  is, 
but,  in  many  cases,  as  we  have  seen,  have  been  accompanied  by  the 
institution  of  libraries,  wholesale  bank  and  trading  societies,  con- 
ferences and  congresses,  and  in  some  cases  productive  concerns.  It 
is  further  to  be  remembered  that  since  1852 — when  the  first  In- 
dustrial and  Provident  Societies  Act  was  passed—all  this  develop- 
ment has  been  perfectly  natural  and  sj^ontaneous,  has  taken  phv  e 
in  the  open  market,  subject  to  the  full  and  keen  competition  of  otli-  r 
industrial  organizations.  If  the  believers  in  an  agency  which  has 
done  thus  much  think  that  more  than  is  likely  to  be  witnessed  yet 
remains  for  it  to  do,  the  delusion  is  at  least  pardonable,  and  if  these 
are  called  fanatics,  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  was  fanatics  wit  it 
whom  co-operation  had  its  first  beginnings. 


CHAPTER    XIY. 

CRIMINAL     ENGLAND. 

Definition  of  Crime — Difficulty  of  arriving  at  Exact  Estimate  of  Amount  of 
Crime — Figures  apt  to  mislead ;  yet  much  has  been  done  during  the  Cen- 
tury— Direction  of  Reform — Prisons,  Police,  Reformatories — Constitution 
of  the  Army  of  Crime — Categories  of  Criminals — Congenital  Crime — High 
Flights  of  Modern  Burglars — Habitual  Criminals — Prevention  of  Crimes  Act 
■ — Accidental  Criminals— Colossal  Criminals — Police  Organization:  its  De- 
fects— Recent  Reforms — Machinery  of  Detection — New  System  in  London 
detailed — Treatment  of  Criminals  after  Apprehension — Imprisonment — 
Local  Prisons  and  New  Organization  described — Penal  Servitude— Convict 
Prisons  described — Discharged  Prisoners— Difficulties  they  have  to  face — 
Assistance  given  by  Prisoners'  Aid  Societies,  and  the  Results  these  proba- 
bly achieve. 

CRIME  in  the  body  politic  is  often  justly  compared  to  some  mys- 
terious ailment,  inveterate  in  the  human  frame.  Just  as  the 
extent  and  ramifications  of  the  one  are  apt  to  defy  medical  diagno- 
sis, so  do  statisticians,  sociologists,  and  philanthropists  differ  about 
the  other.  They  cannot  agree  as  to  the  origin  of  crime;  they  ques- 
tion results  which  figures  might  be  supposed  indisputably  to  prove; 
they  join  issue  upon  methods  of  treatment,  and  have  each  their  fa- 
vorite panacea.  Some  there  are  who  consider  crime  an  inalienable 
birthright.  According  to  this  view  thieving  and  wrong-doing  are 
transmitted  from  generation  to  generation,  and  if  we  would  elimi- 
nate them  we  must  segregate  the  dangerous  classes,  and  reduce 
their  power  of  reproduction  to  its  lowest  term.  Others  are  satisfied 
to  deal  with  the  infant  criminal,  and  hope  to  eradicate  the  inherited 
taint  before  it  has  acquired  concrete  proportions,  by  removing  the 
bantling  from  sinister  influences  when  still  susceptible  of  improve- 
ment. A  thud  and  very  numerous  school  do  not  despair  of  refor- 
mation even  when  the  criminal  is  full  grown  and  hardened  in  his 
career,  and  preserving  their  faith  unimpaired  in  moral  influences, 
continue  to  profess  a  belief  that  prisons  properly  managed  will 
gradually  diminish  crime.  Upon  the  actual  statistics  of  crime  there 
are  also  many  opinions.     To  the  official  mind  the  figures  published 


CRIMINAL    ENGLAND.  289 

in  parliamentary  papers  may  be  convincing  enough.  Columns  in- 
numerable, carefully  compiled  and  calculated,  prove  to  demonstra- 
tion that  although  the  population  of  the  kingdom  steadily  grows 
there  is  no  corresponding  increase  in  crime.  On  the  other  hand, 
many  deny  the  soundness  of  that  position.  Figures,  they  are  ready 
to  admit,  cannot  lie,  but  they  may  mislead.  It  is  not  sufficient 
show  that  the  number  of  indictable  offenses  dimi;:  >ar 

to  year;  it  must  be  proved  that  eveiy  crime  has  been  detected  and 
every  criminal  brought  to  justice.  Is  it  not  the  fact  that  many  of- 
fenders escape  scot  free?  that  even  the  crimes  they  commit  remain 
unknown  long  after  their  perpetration?  Is  it  not  also  undoubtedly 
true  that  honest  folk  often  submit  tamely  to  injury  and  depredation 
sooner  than  be  further  mulcted  in  heavy  sums  to  carry  out  prosecu- 
tions whereof  the  expense,  it  may  be  urged,  should  fall  upon  the 
State  ? 

Where  views  and  opinions  are  so  various  and  conflicting,  it 
might  seem  at  first  difficult  to  come  to  any  conclusion  upon  the 
general  question.  But  if  we  can  once  clear  ourselves  of  the  intri- 
cacies of  mere  detail,  and,  unbiassed  by  partisan  spirit,  take  a  calm 
and  comprehensive  survey  of  the  subject,  we  shall  arrive  at  certain 
broad  facts  which  will  immensely  facilitate  the  task.  The  actual 
condition  of  crime  and  the  measures  which  deal  with  it  may  not  be 
as  yet  absolutely  satisfactory,  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that  criminal 
legislation  generally  has  improved  vastly  since  the  conimencenu  nt 
of  the  present  century.  It  may  be  that  the  prevention  of  crime,  the 
removal  of  temptations  to  commit  it,  and  its  treatment  in  its  first 
beginnings,  have  not  yet  reached  the  scientific  stage;  that  the  ma- 
chinery of  detection  is  still  imperfect  and  uncertain;  that  the  theory 
and  practice  of  repression,  the  pains  and  penalties,  retributory  or 
deterrent,  imposed  to  maintain  the  majesty  of  the  law,  continue,  in 
spite  of  earnest  endeavors  to  understand  them,  illogical  and  incom- 
plete. Be  it  so;  it  is  still  certain  that  in  all  these  matters  We  have 
made  enormous  strides  in  recent  years.  Our  penal  code  has  lost  i!  3 
ancient  savage  and  ruthless  character.  It  is  not  so  long  ago  that 
the  theft  of  a  spoon  was  enough  to  hang  a  man,  and  thai  affa  r  every 
assize  the  gallows  were  loaded  with  victims  guilty  of  the  i  iosI  v< 
offenses.  Little  less  barbarous  was  the  system  of  secondary  punish- 
ment meted  out  to  those  who  escaped  the  capital  sentence  of  l 
law.  It  was  underlaid  by  the  same  principle  of  extirpation.  Trans- 
portation beyond  the  seas  was  established  as  a  means  of  riddii 
community  of  its  criminals  for  as  long  a  time  as  possible,  perhi 
forever.     Never  was  a  more  anomalous  and  inconsistent  scheme  of 


240  ENGLAND. 

penal  repression  devised.  It  was  most  unequal  in  its  incidence. 
Some  suffered  severely,  others  were  rapidly  transformed  into  mil- 
lionaires. The  punishment,  again,  such  as  it  was,  was  indicted  at 
so  great  a  distance  from  home  that  it  failed  to  act  as  a  warning  upon 
those  who  remained  behind.  Presently,  with  increased  means  of 
intercommunication,  the  penalty  of  expatriation  ceased  to  be  effect- 
ive, till  at  last,  as  the  colonies  themselves  progressed  towards  ma- 
terial wealth  and  prosperity,  the  strange  spectacle  was  seen  of  honest 
artisans  emigrating  of  then'  own  accord  to  spots  where  felons  were 
also  relegated  for  then  sins.  Anomalies  such  as  these  have  now  al- 
together disappeared.  Transportation  has  been  replaced  by  penal 
servitude,  and  that  the  whole  scheme  of  imprisonment  and  jail  man- 
agement is  certain  in  its  operations  and  fairly  effective  is  shown  by 
the  results  it  obtains.  Eouallv  marked  have  been  the  changes  and 
reforms  in  police  organization.  The  existing  elaborate  machinery, 
|  which  embraces  every  corner  of  the  kingdom,  which  in  England  and 
Wales  alone  employs  some  thirty  thousand  men,  and  costs  a  couple 
of  millions  a  year,  is  barely  half  a  century  old.  People  who,  not  too 
gratefully,  accept  the  ubiquitous  policeman  of  to-day  as  an  estab- 
lished institution,  shoidd  compare  him  and  the  system  of  which  he 
is  the  exponent  with  the  ancient  Charlie  or  the  Bow  Street  runner 
of  the  past.  It  is  no  longer  necessary  to  raise  the  hue  and  cry  in 
order  to  bring  great  criminals  to  justice;  soldiers  do  not  now  act  as 
thief-catchers,  nor  is  it  often  that  they  are  called  out  in  aid  of  the 
civil  23ower.  The  prevention  of  crime,  again,  ■  may  be  a  difficult 
problem  which  will  remain  unsolved  for  many  centuries,  but  ex- 
ceedingly praiseworthy  efforts  at  its  solution  have  been  made  in 
recent  years.  It  is  coming  to  be  more  generally  understood  that 
crime  must  be  dealt  with  in  the  rudimentary  sta^-e.  To  reform 
hardened  offenders  has  proved  almost  impossible,  but  their  off- 
spring with  care  may  be  preserved  from  contaminating  influences 
and  turned  into  the  right  path.  Much  has  been  already  accom- 
plished in  this  direction  by  reformatory  and  industrial  schools,  the 
number  of  which  are  increasing  from  day  to  day.  Through  them 
it  may  yet  be  possible  to  cut  off  the  supply  which  feeds  and  keeps 
alive  the  great  army  of  crime  still  existing  in  our  midst;  a  vast  force 
of  wrong-doers  warring  constantly  with  society,  achieving  few  suc- 
cesses, suffering  many  reverses,  but  exhibiting  a  vitality  equally 
deplorable  and  tenacious. 

This  army  is  strangely  constituted,  and  veiy  variously  recruited. 
There  are  many  categories  of  criminals.  Some  are  born  criminals; 
some  achieve  crime;   others  have  crime   thrust  upon  them.     The 


CRIMINAL    ENGLAND.  '2  1 1 

i  -wretched  urchin,  whether  nameless  or  owning  a  known  parents 
who  iirst  sees  the  light  in  the  purlieus  of  WhitechapeL  in  Seven 
Dials,  or  Drury  Lane,  takes  in  thievish  and  other  evil  propena  I 
with  his  mother's  milk.  He  learns  to  look  upon  the  well-to  do 
classes  as  his  natural  prey.  He  is  taught  to  reverence  the  sum 
i'ul  depredator  as  a  glorious  being;  to  despise  the  policeman  the 
"copper,"  in  his  own  slang — as  his  natural  foe.  His  education,  ex- 
cept in  the  nefarious  processes  of  the  profession  which  with  him  is 
hereditary,  is  utterly  neglected.  He  grows  up  with  ideas  of  right 
and  wrong  not  so  much  perverted  as  non-existent.  As  soon  as  he 
is  able  to  move  his  fingers  or  act  for  himself  he  joins  the  seminary 
of  some  modern  Fagan,  and  in  the  companionship  of  the  Artful 
Dodger,  rapidly  passes  through  the  curriculum,  choosing  at  its 
close  the  career  in  which  he  continues  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  He 
soon  becomes  familiar  with  all  the  ups  and  downs  of  his  precarious 
profession.  For  a  time  he  may  enjoy  immunity,  may  remain  un- 
known to  the  police,  and  with  this  continuous  opportunity  of  plying 
his  trade,  he  may  pass  a  year,  perhaps  several  years,  in  comparative 
comfort,  doing  no  work,  and  yet  receiving  an  abundance  of  ill-got- 
ten wages.  At  this  epoch  he  consorts  with  his  "fanc}r"  of  the  oppo- 
site sex,  and  enters  into  a  gtum-matrimonial  partnership,  which 
results  in  the  perpetuation  of  his  species  by  children  who  will,  un- 
less a  special  Providence  intervene,  follow  in  his  footsteps.  Sooner 
or  later  he  falls,  as  he  euphemistically  puts  it,  into  trouble.  It  may 
be  his  evil  luck  to  become  familiarized  with  the  inside  of  a  jail  even 
in  his  tenderest  years;  he  may  long  escape  capture,  but  sooner  or 
later  he  is  certain  to  come  within  the  grip  of  the  law,  and  once  a 
jail-bird,  a  jail-bird  he  generally  continues  to  the  end  of  his  days. 

To  reclaim  such  unfortunate  Ishmaehtes  as  these  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  their  downward  progress  is  the  praiseworthy  object  of  nu- 
merous missions,  refuges,  and  other  reformatory  institutions,  which 
jsilently  and  with  but  little  show,  are  now  working  strenuously 
amongst  us.  "What  measure  of  success  attends  their  estimable  ef- 
forts cannot  be  very  accurately  determined.  It  is  at  least  certain 
that  the  training-ships  and  industrial  schools  return  annually  to  tin- 
general  population  many  thousands  of  lads  and  girls,  who  have  b< 
transformed  from  vagabonds  of  the  most  unpromising  material  into 
decent  creatures,  weaned  of  their  predatory  instincts,  and  willing 
to  work  honestly  for  their  daily  bread.  These  numbers,  however, 
represent  but  a  fraction  of  the  whole  mass  of  criminality  from  which 
they  have  been  redeemed.  The  large  balance  which  remains  con 
tinues  unreclaimed,  and  passes  from  bad  to  worse  with  rapid  strides. 
16 


242  ENGLAND. 

The  pickpocket  and  the  area  sneak,  who  are  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
criminal  profession,  if  they  display  proper  aptitudes,  soon  promote 
themselves  to  its  higher  walks.  That  strangely  developed  astute- 
ness, the  fertile  brains  and  nimble  fingers  which  are  such  marked 
characteristics  of  the  dangerous  classes,  serve  them  in  good  stead 
when  they  come  to  be  engaged  in  larger  operations,  playing  for 
bigger  stakes,  and  risking  longer  periods  of  forfeited  liberty  upon 
each  throw.  The  patient  and  minute  care  which  the  habitual  burg- 
lar bestows  upon  his  plans  is  worthy  of  the  great  general  preparing 
or  prosecuting  an  important  campaign.  He  approaches  his  quar- 
ry by  circuitous  routes;  gathers  information  from  every  available 
source,  undermines  insidiously  the  honesty,  or  boldly  secures  the 
co-operation,  of  the  servants  of  the  establishment  which  he  has 
marked  down  as  his  prey.  He  does  not  attempt  to  pluck  the  apple 
till  it  is  ripe,  and  by  that  time  all  his  arrangements  have  been  care- 
fully matured.  He  has  decided  upon  the  best  plan  of  committing 
the  deed.  If  the  job  be  one  which,  for  obvious  reasons,  he  d6es 
not  wish  to  execute  personally,  the  services  of  a  comrade,  an  equally 
adroit  cracksman,  not  so  well  known  in  the  neighborhood,  are  se- 
cured. The  light  vehicle — a  tax-cart,  with  a  fast-trotting  pony — is 
ready  to  transfer  the  booty  rapidly  from  the  scene  of  action  to  a 
more  distant  spot,  where  the  scent  is  weak  or  suspicion  not  yet 
aroused.  Chief  of  all,  a  convenient  "  fence,"  or  receiver  of  stolen 
goods,  is  advised  of  the  approaching  coup;  his  melting-pot  is  ready 
to  turn  the  plate  into  "white  soup,"  his  emissaries  wait  only  his 
orders  to  make  themselves  scarce  with  the  iewels,  which  cannot  be 
disposed  of  nearer  than  Vienna  or  Amsterdam.  Thus  from  the 
first  conception  of  the  robbery,  through  all  the  preparations  which 
have  preceded  its  committal,  to  the  skill  displayed  in  execution  and 
the  subsequent  astute  cunning  of  the  agents  employed  to  remove 
all  traces  and  destroy  every  clue,  the  whole  affair  has  been  managed 
in  a  masterly  and  a  thoroughly  artistic  fashion.  It  is  the  perfection 
thus  visible  in  the  plans  of  modern  burglars  that  has  led  to  those 
repeated  successes  on  a  large  scale  which  will  explain  how  at  cer- 
tain seasons  a  whole  country  side  is  devastated  by  these  human 
pests;  how  mansion  after  mansion,  country  house  after  country 
house  can  be  ransacked  with  impunity,  and  in  the  teeth  of  the  local 
police;  how  in  London,  in  the  broad  daylight,  and  in  busy  thor- 
oughfares, enterprising  thieves  can  enter  and  despoil  private  dwell- 
ing-houses under  the  very  noses  of  their  owners.  It  may  also  ac- 
count for  other  mysterious  and  still  undetected  affairs;  may  explain 
how  the  jewel-box  of  a  countess  can  be  extracted  under  the  eyes 


CRIMINAL    ENGLAND. 

of  servants  and  officials  at  a  great  London  terminus;  how  a  world- 
renowned  picture  may  be  spirited  away  from  a  well-watched  and 
strongly  guarded   picture-gallery  iu   the  very  heart  of  the   West 

End. 

But  it  is  not  only  as  a  burglar  on  a  large  scale,  whether  top- 
sawyer  and  chief,  or  merely  an  individual  unit  in  a  wide  confederacy 
and  the  trusted  agent  of  others  that  the  greatest  criminals  nowadays 
achieve  success.  There  are  other  methods  of  rising  to  eminence  in 
the  nefarious  trade.  Although  continually  beaten  up  and  hunt,  d 
from  pillar  to  post  by  the  police,  numbers  of  clever  rascals  who  sit 
still  themselves  contrive  to  do  a  roaring  trade  upon  the  active  mis- 
deeds of  less  experienced  rogues.  These  are  they  vim  employ  pick- 
pocket and  burglar  as  catspaws  to  pull  the  chestnuts  out  of  the  fire. 
The  receiver  of  stolen  goods,  whatever  their  description — handker- 
chiefs, milk  cans,  forged  bills,  or  bank  notes  embezzled — does  more 
to  foster  crime  than  those  who  actually  practice  it.  But  although 
infinitely  more  criminal,  he  often  escaj)es  scot  free.  Justice  may  in 
the  long  run  overtake  him,  but  not  before  he  has  had  opportunities 
of  amassing  considerable  wealth.  How  far-reaching  and  cunningly 
laid  are  the  nets  spread  by  tho  experts  of  this  branch  of  crime,  is 
seen  as  often  as  their  evil  practices  are  discovered  and  laid  bare 
It  is  then  discovered  that  some  master-mind  has  woven  a  web  and 
planned  schemes  upon  a  gigantic  scale.  In  a  very  notorious  ca 
which  occupied  the  attention  of  the  public  in  1877 — that  of  the  Long 
Firm,  it  was  found  that  the  fraternity  embraced  all  manner  of  men 
and  women  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  that  operations  of  unusual 
magnitude  were  manipulated  by  rogues  with  great  financial  skill 
and  uncommon  aptitudes  for  business,  and  that  the  traffic  3iad  pros- 
pered undetected  and  unchecked  for  several  consecutive  years.  The 
same  breadth  of  treatment,  accompanied  by  minute  knowledge  and 
mastery  over  details,  were  exhibited  by  the  Transatlantic  forgers, 
who  in  1873  committed  frauds  upon  the  Bank  of  England,  which,  if 
undetected,  would  have  involved  the  loss  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  pounds. 

But  it  is  not  given  to  all  to  succeed,  although  many  conspicuous 
examples  may  be  quoted  of  successful  crime.  These  are  the  lead:  is 
and  generals;  there  remain  the  common  men,  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  army  of  crime,  who  have  not  possessed  originally  the  talent  to 
rise,  or  who  through  bad  luck  or  bad  management  have  gravitated 
still  farther  downwards,  and  whoso  misdeeds  are  of  a  more  pros 
and  commonplace  character.  Their  thieving,  and  their  malpractices 
generally  when  they  act  for  themselves,  are  always  on  a  second-raio 


244  ENGLAND.  * 

scale;  if  they  fly  at  higher  game  it  is  as  the  tools  or  instruments  of 
others,  and  in  such  cases  luck  seldom  brings  them  more  than  a  tithe 
of  the  proceeds,  while  they  have  often  to  bear  the  whole  brunt  of 
failure.  Still,  whatever  their  degree  and  precedence  in  the  ordei 
of  iniquity,  they  all  belong  to  the  class  of  habitual  criminals.  That 
is  an  alarmingly  numerous  force.  There  are  some  40,000  thieves 
and  depredators  continually  at  large;  of  the  23,000  persons  appre- 
hended annually  on  suspicion  of  indictable  crimes,  and  of  whom 
about  14,000  are  committed  for  trial,  nearly  half  come  under  this 
category,  as  do  many  thousands  and  thousands  of  the  half  million 
people  summarily  convicted  every  year.  It  is  with  this  race  of  rep- 
robates that  our  jails  and  convict  establishments  are  principally  filled; 
it  is  they  who  are  the  objects  of  unremitting  solicitude  on  the  part  of 
the  police,  whether  living  prosperously,  in  the  suburbs,  or  congregat- 
ing in  thieves'  kitchens  in  the  East  End.  They  are  all  more  or  less 
familiar  to  the  police,  and  if  "wanted"  can  generally  be  produced 
without  loss  of  time.  It  is  on  their  account,  and  to  facilitate  their 
ready  identification,  that  huge  ledgers,  known  as  the  Habitual  Crim- 
inals' Register,  are  kept  with  admirable  care  and  minuteness  at  the 
Home  Office,  and  posted  up  from  day  to  day.  Against  these  out- 
laws severe  enactments  have  recently  been  made.  The  law  known 
as  the  Prevention  of  Crimes  Act  is  directed  mainlv  against  habitual 
crime;  not  only  does  it  lay  down  that  a  repetition  of  offenses  brings 
those  who  commit  them  within  the  definition  and  liable  to  the  penal- 
ties of  habitual  criminals,  but  it  provides  for  such  subsequent  super- 
vision as  may  watch  over  possible  depredators  and  keep  them  in 
check.  If  none  of  these  measures  have  as  yet  appreciably  dimin- 
ished the  number  of  habitual  offenders,  it  must  be  admitted  that  as 
yet  only  a  short  time  has  elapsed  since  their  introduction,  and  that 
it  is  still  too  soon  to  look  for  decisive  results. 

Although  the  foregoing  categories  of  criminals  account  for  a 
large  proportion  of  the  whole  number,  there  remains  a  consider- 
able fraction  of  evil-doers  in  whom  the  taint  is  neither  hereditary 
nor  habitual,  but  who  represent  distinct  types  of  crime  peculiar  to 
the  present  day.  These  are  the  accidental,  the  almost  involuntary 
criminal;  those  also  who,  cursed  from  the  beginning  with  a  weak 
x  moral  fiber,  have  gradually  succumbed  to  temptation,  and  degener- 
ated from  bad  to  worse.  That  foolish  spirit  of  social  competition, 
which  permeates  even  the  lower  middle-classes,  and  which  shows 
itself  in  unneccessary  ostentation  and  culpable  extravagance,  has 
been  at  the  bottom  of  much  misery  and  mischief.  The  small-sala- 
ried clerk,  03'  the  struggling  tradesman,  is  egged  on  by  his  wife  and 


CRIMINAL    ENGLAND.  246 

daughters,  who  are  eager  to  erect  their  heads  above  their  neighbors, 
and  live  beyond  their  means.  When  evil  days  come  up  m  him,  sur- 
rounded by  difficulties  and  harassed  by  importunate  claims,  the 
lapse  into  dishonesty  is  unhappily  only  too  easy.  Be  may  make 
(a  desperate  effort  to  retrieve  his  fortunes  by  speculations.  Ji 
can  find  a  stock-broker  to  trust  him  he  may  try  his  hand  in  Cap  il 
Court  on  a  small  scale.  More  probably  he  puts  his  trust  in  betting 
men,  and  hopes  for  a  big  windfall  from  backing  the  right  horse.  As 
these  dangerous  expedients  probably  plunge  liim  ere  long  deeper 
and  deeper  into  the  niire,  the  transition  to  misappropriation,  to 
embezzlement,  to  fraudulent  trading  and  betrayal  of  trust,  whether 
to  employers  or  to  relatives  and  friends,  becomes  almost  inevitable, 
and  he  is  henceforth  a  ruined  man.  The  waters  close  over  him,  lie 
is  engulfed  in  the  stream,  and  the  chances  are  a  thousand  to  one 
that  he  never  regains  dry  land. 

Criminals  of  this  description  are  to  be  pitied  almost  as  much  as 
they  must  be  blamed.  No  such  consideration  can  be  extended  to 
others  encountered  only  too  frequently  at  the  present  day  in  a  lower 
stratum  of  society.  Crimes  the  most  brutal  and  atrocious  are  un- 
/  happily  very  prevalent  among  a  certain  class:  the  collier,  toiling 
artisan,  and  workman,  to  whom  a  recent  rise  in  wages  may  have 
brought  a  sudden  and  unexpected  accession  of  means — for  whu  h 
they  can  find  no  employment  but  in  satisfying  a  lust  for  drink. 
The  wide-spread  drunkenness  among  such  people,  embracing  as  it 
does  ranks  and  classes  above  them  which  might  be  supposed  supe- 
rior to  the  low  temptation,  has  grown  into  a  national  evil.  A  con- 
stantly increasing  percentage  of  crimes  with  violence  is  committed 
by  soddened  and  brutalized  ruffians  in  their  cups.  The  besotted 
tojDer  returns  to  his  home,  barren  and  cheerless,  because  all  sup- 
plies have  been  diverted  to  gratify  his  artificial  thirst.  Angry  alter- 
cations follow,  quarrels,  mutual  recriminations,  between  the  long-suf- 
fering wife  who  in  her  misery  has  sought  solace  in  the  same  debasing 
cup.  At  last  the  stronger  sex,  goaded  and  maddened  to  fury,  asserts 
its  mastery  by  cowardly  blows,  delivered  with  the  first  weapon  to 
hand,  with  knife,  hobnailed  boots,  or  bare  fist,  and  the  evening  jour- 
nals are  furnished  with  a  paragraph,  headed  "Brutal  Wife  Muni' 
Sometimes  children  are  included  in  the  deed.  Sometimes  the  affray 
follows  a  pothouse  quarrel,  and  the  victim  is  a  drunken  assort 
possibly  an  unoffending  spectator,  who  has  essayed  to  act  as  a  peace- 
maker, and  brought  upon  himself  the  murderous  wrath  of  both  par- 
ties to  the  fight.  Wretches  who  have  been  thus  transformed  bj 
drink  into  wild  beasts  are  not  habitual  criminals.     They   Del 


246  ENGLAND. 

rather  to  the  class  of  chance  criminals,  of  those  who  by  weak  sur- 
rendering to  vicious  habits  have  had  crime  thrust  upon  them. 

But  no  picture  of  crime  in  modern  England  would  be  complete 
which  lacked  a  portrait  of  those  who  may  be  said  to  have  achieved 
crime.  The  well-educated  criminal,  as  expert  as  he  is  daring,  as 
trusted  as  he  is  deceitful,  well  born  possibly,  and  highly  esteemed, 
who  pursues,  nevertheless,  for  years  a  course  of  systematic  fraud  on 
the  most  colossal  scale,  is  essentially  a  product  of  these  later  times. 
He  is  another  remarkable  instance  of  that  tendency  to  exaggeration 
which  is  one  of  the  notes  of  our  a<?e.  The  names  of  these  giants  in 
guilt  are  familiar  to  all.  The  Redpaths  and  Robsons  of  a  few  years 
back  were  but  the  prototypes  of  men  who  outdo  them  in  shameless 
depravity.  The  recent  immense  extension  of  commercial  enterprise, 
the  magnitude  of  modern  financial  operations,  have  opened  up  to 
these  evil  geniuses  opportunities  which  their  predecessors  seldom 
obtained.  Thev  work  then  flagitious  schemes  with  so  much  skill 
that  they  commonly  secure  for  themselves  a  long  enjoyment  of 
prosperity.  "When  the  crash  comes  every  one  is  taken  by  surprise. 
Yet  the  facts  as  they  become  known  are  found  to  be  nearly  always 
identical.  There  have  been  the  same  circumstances  of  groat  wealth 
displayed,  the  sources  of  which  are  unexplained;  the  same  careless- 
ness in  supervision,  the  same  blind  trustfulness  on  the  part  of  direc- 
tors and  employers  which  has  accepted  fraudulent  figures  and  audits 
incompletely  carried  out. 

There  is  a  strong  family  likeness  in  the  careers  of  these  great 
commercial  criminals,  and  any  one  may  be  taken  as  the  type  of  all. 
I  The  scene  opens  in  counting-house  or  bank,  in  which  as  junior  clerk 
or  subordinate  employe  the  future  prince  of  rogues  displays  such 
undoubted  talents  for  business  that  he  soon  gains  commendation. 
Advancement  follows;  but  the  latter  is  probably  too  slow  for  his 
ardent  and  avaricious  spirit,  and  his  fertile  wits  begin  to  plan  out 
more  expeditious  methods  of  obtaining  at  once  by  fraud  what  only 
long  years  of  patient  industry  would  bring  him  with  honor.  It  may 
be  that  his  schemes  are  assisted  by  the  trust  his  employers  place  in 
him,  or  by  their  neglect  of  simple  precautions;  it  may  be  that  he  is 
surrounded  by  innumerable  checks,  and  that  his  successful  progress 
is  hampered  and  hindered;  but  if  he  be  of  the  true  type  he  will 
triumph  over  all  such  difficulties.  He  has  genius  enough  to  carve 
out  a  line  for  himself.  Perhaps  he  depends  upon  systematic  falsifi- 
cation of  figures,  perhaps  he  forges  freely,  perhaps  he  manufactures 
and  circulates  spurious  securities;  but  in  one  way  or  another  he 
rises  rapidly  in  wealth  and  esteem.     So  soon  as  his  hollow  bark  is 


i 


CRIMINAL    ENGLAND.  217 

launched  upon  the  great  waters  of  credit  his  operations  increase,  he 
becomes  widely  known,  and  he  draws  more  fish  into  his  net.     New, 
too,  he  begins  to  enjoy  life.     He  revels  upon  the  fat  of  the  land.     II. 
has  town  house  and  country  house,  a  yacht,  ;i  shooting-box,  a  moor. 

His  stables  are  filled  with  carriages  and  costly  hunters.  Be  aspires 
to  be  styled  a  modern  Maecenas,  is  a  liberal  patron  of  the  fine  arts, 
is  esteemed  highly  by  dealers  and  Academicians.  Not  unfrequ<  nily 
he  adopts  the  cloak  of  piety  as  the  best  antidote  to  suspicion. 
subscribes  liberally  to  all  charities,  is  himself  churchwarden  or  i  Ider, 
is  often  seen  on  the  platform  at  Exeter  Hall,  and  is  quoted  as  a  shin- 
ing light  among  Revivalists  and  Latter  Day  Saints.  Surprise  that 
so  excellent  a  man  should  have  gone  astray  is  one  of  the  firsl  of  the 
shocks  which  accompany  the  sudden  discovery  of  his  guilt, 
and  compassion  for  him  are  probably  expressed  at  first,  till  fuller 
revelations  prove  how  wide-reaching  have  been  his  guilty  practices, 
and  how  his  collapse  brings  numbers  of  innocent  persons  to  beggary 
and  ruin.  Then  we  have  an  outburst  of  indignation  against  all  who 
permitted  him  to  escape  detection,  and  for  so  long. 

What  measure  of  success  has  attended  our  police  organization 
since  its  establishment  may  not  be  very  accurately  determined. 
Many  people  deny  that  it  has  accomplished  much;  some  protest 
against  the  modern  tendency  to  rely  altogether  upon  the  po- 
lice as  entailing  the  loss  of  personal  independence  and  self-re- 
liance. This  spirit  is  often  exaggerated  into  unfriendliness  against 
the  force.  Every  unfavorable  circumstance  is  quoted  to  its  dis- 
credit. Its  members  are  sometimes  charged  with  exceeding  their 
powers,  sometimes  with  condoning  offences  when  it  has  been  made 
worth  their  while  to  be  conveniently  blind.  More  commonly  the 
police  are  twitted  with  their  failures  in  following  out  clues  and  bring- 
ing to  justice  the  perpetrators  of  heinous  and  other  crimes.  Quite 
recently  the  unfortunate  revelation  that  certain  hitherto  trusted  Lon- 
don detectives  had  made  common  cause  with  the  enemies  of  society 
threw  grave  susjricions  upon  the  rectitude  of  the  whole  constabulary. 
Nevertheless,  it  would  be  grossly  unfair  to  ignore  what  the  police 
have  done  and  still  do.  They  have  undoubtedly  contributed  to  re- 
press and  subjugate  crime.  Their  existence  is  a  bulwark  against  it; 
a  standing  menace  to  evil-doers;  a  plain  warning  that  the  law  is  and 
intends  to  continue  supreme.  The  fact  that  serious  crimes  now  and 
again  pass  undetected  may  prove  that  police  machinery  is  imperfect, 
but  not  that  it  has  failed.  Against  the  crimes  which  baffle  all  efforts 
at  detection  may  be  set  those  which  through  police  intervention, 
active  or  passive,  are  never  committed  at  all.     The  constable  on  his 


248  ENGLAND. 

beat  is  like  the  sentinel  watching  over  the  welfare  and  safety  of  the 
sleeping  town.  He  is  always  on  the  alert,  and  gives  instant  alarm 
on  the  approach  of  danger. 

At  the  same  time  it  cannot  be  denied  that  our  detective  police 
achieves  smaller  successes  than  that  of  our  Continental  neighbors. 
This  is  mainly  to  be  traced  to  the  repugnance  of  a  free  country  to 
any  thing  approaching  espionage,  a  sentiment  which  insists  that 
something  more  than  mere  suspicion  shall  exist  to  warrant  any  in- 
fringement of  the  liberty  of  the  subject.  These  limitations  naturally 
circumscribe  the  action  of  the  police,  paralyzing  then-  efforts,  and 
rendering  them  often  barren  of  results.  Yet  the  system  as  now  con- 
stituted cannot  well  be  found  fault  with.  In  all  the  large  towns  an 
elaborate  machinery  exists  which  works  with  clock-like  precision. 
Take  the  case  of  London,  in  which  the  arrangements  have  most  re- 
cently been  thoroughly  revised  under  the  close  personal  supervision 
of  the  newly  constituted  chief  of  the  Department  of  Criminal  Inves- 
tigation, as  it  is  now  styled. 

This  official  is  seated  at  Scotland  Yard,  the  well-known  center  of 
the  detective  system;  and  here  are  gathered  together  the  threads 
of  a  vast  network  which  embraces  the  whole  metropolis  in  its  rami- 
fications. Early  every  morning  reports  are  received  at  this  head- 
quarters from  all  out-stations  of  the  crimes  committed  during  the 
night.  It  is  the  business  of  a  responsible  official  to  examine  these 
without  loss  of  time.  Should  there  be  among  the  lists  any  crime  of 
unusual  magnitude  and  importance,  full  information  thereof  is  tele- 
graphed forthwith  to  our  Prefect.  If  he  is  still  in  bed,  the  electric 
bell  is  at  his  side,  and  he  can  himself  read  off  from  the  instrument 
the  news  as  it  comes,  and  reply  with  necessary  instructions.  All  the 
reports  are  at  once  set  up  in  type  upon  the  premises.  Within  an 
hour  they  are  struck  off  and  circulated  by  the  police  messengers  in 
hght  tax-carts  throughout  the  police  stations  of  the  metropolis. 
These  "informations,"  as  they  are  called,  contain  full  particulars  of 
the  crimes,  with  a  full  signalement  of  their  perpetrators,  and  the  whole 
document  is  read  aloud  to  the  reliefs  of  blue-coated  constables  as 
they  go  on  duty.  The  same  process  is  repeated  four  times  a  day; 
fresh  reports  are  made  the  groundwork  of  fresh  informations,  and 
thus  every  policeman  over  a  wide  area  of  thirty  square  miles  is  made 
aware  of  what  mischief  is  afoot.  "When  the  case  is  more  serious,  im- 
mediately on  the  receipt  of  the  morning  reports  telegraphic  com- 
munications are  sent  simultaneously  to  all  the  chief  detective  officers 
at  out-stations,  who  in  turn  warn  their  immediate  subordinates  to 
be  on  the  alert.     In  such  a  case,  too,  the  chief  will  have  promptly 


CRIMINAL    ENGLAND.  249 

supervened  either  personally  or  by  wire.  Acting  under  his  orders 
the  experts — detective  officers  have  each  their  specialty—  have  been 
summoned  to  Scotland  Yard  to  confer.  The  chief  of  the  depart- 
ment meets  them,  listens  to  their  advice,  discusses  the  case  in  all  its 
bearings,  and  decides  upon  the  course  of  action.  Perhaps  the  job 
is  intrusted  specially  to  some  particular  man,  perhaps  to  BeveraL 
It  may  be  that  the  whole  machinery  is  set  in  movement  and  b 
6rai  hue  and  cry  is  raised  throughout  and  even  beyond  the  metro- 
politan boundaries,  by  prompt  intercommunication  with  the  police 
of  the  seaports  and  principal  provincial  towns.  As  the  day  passes 
scraps  of  news  probably  come  in,  and  are  at  once  distributed  to  the 
sleuth-hounds  who  are  drawing  the  vast  covert.  The  scent  grows 
stronger  in  consequence  on  this  side  or  on  that;  one  hound  lias 
struck  it,  and  his  whimper — transmitted  by  wire — is  taken  up  by  the 
pack;  ere  long,  if  all  goes  well,  the  leading  pursuers  break  from  scent 
to  view,  and  before  night  the  quarry  has  been  run  into  and  secured. 
When  a  great  crime  has  been  committed  in  the  country  the  same 
course  is  followed.  We  will  suppose  a  bishop's  palace  has  been 
broken  into,  a  quantity  of  plate  and  valuables  extracted.  The 
county  constabulary  communicate  at  once  by  telegraph  with  the 
metropolitan  police:  the  stolen  property  is  described,  the  person  of 
the  thief,  who  was  observed  leaving  the  house.  Perhaps  he  tumbled 
down  stairs,  or  fell  out  of  the  window,  and  is  supposed  to  have  in- 
jured himself.  "  Look  out  for  a  small  man,  or  a  tall  man,"  as  the 
case  may  be,  "with  a  broken  arm  or  a  broken  leg."  This' is  the  con- 
signe  sent  from  Scotland  Yard:  "Look  out  at  the  pawn  shops  and 
the  known  receivers  for  the  stolen  valuables."  "Short  account  here- 
with," flashes  next.  An  hour  or  two  afterwards  the  printed  infor- 
mations are  circulated  in  the  manner  already  described.  All  the 
hospitals  and  infirmaries  have  been  visited,  and  inquiries  made  of 
newly-received  cases  with  fractured  or  injured  limbs.  The  London 
chief  investigator  has  had  a  long  colloquy,  by  wire,  with  the  local 
chief  constable.  "Can  you  give  me  more  details?  How  was  the 
deed  done?  What  instruments  used?  How  was  entrance  obtained, 
and  so  forth?"  The  replies  to  these  queries  are  so  many  clues  to 
the  experienced  metropolitan  detective.  One  or  other  of  the  old 
officers  called  in  to  confer  says  directly,  "  That  is  Blustering  Bob's 
style  of  work,"  or,  "I  could  swear  to  Jemmy  the  Tinman's  modus 
operandi,"  or,  "The  Black-faced  Poacher  had  a  hand  in  that,  I'll  go 
bail."  Within  an  hour  the  detective  who  has  this  valuable  Bpecial 
knowledge  is  on  the  track  of  his  old  friend.     Blusterin  or 

Jemmy  the  Tinman  is  "wanted."     It  is  on  the  informations,  it  is 


250  ENGLAND. 

wired  right  and  left,  their  favorite  haunts  are  drawn,  and  before  the 
day  is  out  the  culprit  is  discovered,  with  the  bishop's  signet  ring  in 
his  waistcoat  pocket  and  his  arm  in  a  sling. 

Of  course  these  pursuits  are  not  always  and  immediately  success- 
ful. But  it  is  at  least  certain  that  the  system  has  been  greatly  im- 
proved  since  the  notorious  trials  when  Kurr  and  Benson  turned 
Queen's  evidence,  and  the  public  attention  was  aroused  to  the  in- 
efficiency of  the  detective  police.  Until  the  new  organization  was 
introduced  the  detective  department  at  Scotland  Yard  was  closed 
from  midnight  to  ten  a.  m.  The  argus  eyes  of  the  lawT  were  asleep, 
the  whole  machinery  was  stopped,  and  until  eleven  in  the  morning 
did  not  recommence  work.  The  criminal,  therefore,  who  did  his 
business  in  the  night  watches  was  certain  always  of  a  few  hours' 
start,  knowing  full  well  that  no  pursuit  would  be  set  on  foot  except 
during  the  regular  hours.  It  is  far  otherwise  now.  A  superior  offi- 
cer remains  on  duty  at  the  central  office  all  night.  He  has  full  dis- 
cretionary powers;  he  is  a  linguist,  and  can  communicate,  if  neces- 
sary, with  all  the  capitals  of  Europe ;  he'  is  authorized  to  rouse  the 
chief  at  any  moment  of  the  night;  he  is  expected  to  send  out  myr- 
midons promptly  in  pursuit,  to  direct  the  out-stations  to  set  a  special 
watch  upon  the  great  railway  termini;  to  wire  also  to  Liverpool, 
Dover,  Folkestone,  Southampton,  and  other  great  points  of  depart- 
ure for  other  climes.  The  various  units  of  the  detective  force  are 
also  kept  more  rigidly  in  hand.  Every  man  is  obliged  to  enter  in  a 
journal  a  detailed  account  of  his  proceedings*  from  hour  to  hour. 
If  at  the  moment  engaged  on  a  particular  "job,"  and  it  is  rarely  that 
he  is  not  so,  he  has  to  describe  his  operations,  his  movements  from 
place  to  place,  the  steps  by  which  he  conducts  his  investigation. 
These  journals  and  diaries  are  closely  scrutinized  week  after  week 
by  the  divisional  inspectors  and  superintendent,  and  every  month 
they  are  submitted  for  the  examination  of  the  chief  himself.  Very 
careful  measures  are  taken  to  prevent  subordinates  from  falling  into 
temptation.  Private  persons  for  whom  criminal  investigations  are 
made  are  not  now  at  liberty  to  give  rewards  direct.  All  moneys 
must  be  paid  to  the  Chief  of  the  Department,  and  it  rests  with  him 
to  distribute  it  in  such  portions  and  to  such  officers  as  he  considers 
most  deserving.  For  instance,  the  reward  offered  may  be  high  in 
one  case  where  the  victims  are  wealthy;  in  another,  where  the  ends 
of  justice  are  equally  concerned,  no  reward  may  be  forthcoming. 
The  system  now  in  force  provides  one  general  fund,  which  is  admin- 
istered with  due  care  by  the  responsible  head  of  the  department, 
and  the  door  is  thus  closed  to  much  of  the  dishonesty  and  chicanery 


CRIMINAL    ENGLAND.  251 

which  was  possible  when  the  subordinate  dealt  with  the  private  in- 
dividual direct. 

Having  thus  briefly  indicated  the  manner  in  which  crime  is  pur- 
sued and  hunted  down,  let  us  follow  the  culprit  from  the  time  of 
arrest  through  the  various  stages  of  discomfort  to  which  he  is  now 
subjected  by  the  law,  not  only  as  a  punishment  Eor  his  ]  al  mis- 

conduct, but  as  a  salutary  warning  to  others.  The  apprehension  has 
been  made  by  virtue  of  a  warrant  on  sworn  information,  and  the 
offender  when  captured  is  lodged,  if  necessary  for  safe  custody,  iu 
a  police  cell,  but  removed  thence  with  all  possible  despatch  to  one 
or  other  of  Her  Majesty's  prisons.  He  is  next  taken  before  the 
magistrate,  one  or  more,  in  police  court  or  petty  sessions,  who  hear 
evidence  and  decide  the  case.  If  within  their  powers,  they  deal 
summarily  with  it;  if  more  serious  and  seeming,  to  require  more 
exemplary  punishment,  the  culprit  is  sent  for  trial  to  sessions  or 
assizes.  But  in  almost  every  instance,  unless  acquitted,  he  finds 
himself  for  a  greater  or  less  period  sentenced  to  incarceration  in 
one  or  other  of  our  jails.  If  the  term  ranges  from  two  years 
downwards  to  a  week  or  a  few  days,  the  sentence  is  endured  in 
what  until  1878  were  known  as  the  borough  or  county  prisons  scat- 
tered up  and  down  the  country;  if  the  crime  must  be  dealt  with  more 
severely  the  penalty  is  penal  servitude  in  a  convict  prison,  the  short- 
est period  of  which  is  for  five  years,  and  the  longest  for  life.  The 
last-named  prisons  have  been  invariably  in  the,  hands  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, but  those  first  named  were  till  last  year  controlled  by  the 
local  magistracy,  and  their  maintenance  fell  principally  upon  the 
local  rates.  But  since  the  passing  of  the  Prison  Act  of  1877,  whi<  b 
came  into  force  upon  the  1st  April,  1878,  the  whole  of  th  ae  prisons 
have  been  brought  under  the  direct  supervision  of  the  State;  th 
are  altogether  maintained  by  the  imperial  exchequer,  and  their  ad- 
ministration, except  where  the  protection  or  punishment  of  tl 
criminal  inmates  is  concerned,  is  vested  exclusively  in  a  body  of 
officials,  styled  the  Prison  Commissioners,  who  with  their  inspectors 
and  assistants  occupy  a  portion  of  the  Home  Office,  and  act  under 
the  immediate  orders  of  the  Secretary  of  State. 

Although  the  measure  was  not  passed  without  some  opposition, 
it  was  based  upon  such  sensible  principles  that  even  its  foes  could 
only  find  fault  with  it  on  sentimental  grounds.  The  arrangements 
which  it  was  proposed  to  replace  were  open  to  severe  criticism. 
The  various  prisons  were  very  variously  managed,  in  one  county 
the  rules  were  stringent,  in  the  next  foolishly  lax.  Here  the  pris- 
oner spent  half  his  time  on  the  treadwheel,  there  he  never  oiimbe  I 


252  ENGLAND. 

a  step.  Ee  might  be  dieted  quite  differently;  he  might  in  this 
prison  perform  double  the  amount  of  work  that  he  did  in  that. 
Again  the  locality  of  the  prisons  was  often  the  result  of  chance; 
the}''  did  not  follow  population,  but  remained  where  they  had  been 
planted  years  and  years  before.  There  were  in  some  districts  too 
many  prisons,  in  others  too  few.  Here  the  prison  authority  had  to 
hire  cell  accommodation  at  a  distance,  and  endure  the  expense  of 
removing  their  prisoners  thither;  there  the  prison  was  habitually 
half  empty.  Full  or  empty,  the  same  staff  was  maintained:  as  the 
influx  of  prisoners  was  uncertain  officers  could  not  be  dispensed 
with.  Consequently,  in  some  of  the  small  prisons  the  proportion 
of  officers  to  prisoners  was  as  five  to  one.  Above  all,  the  expense 
of  maintenance  was  unfairly  laid  entirely  upon  land  and  house  prop- 
erty, while  incomes  derived  front  other  sources  did  not  contribute 
a  sixpence,  although  benefiting  equally  from  the  protection  prisons 
are  supposed  to  afford.  Moreover,  in  these  days  of  rapid  locomo- 
tion, one  district,  probably,  had  to  pay  for  the  imprisonment  of  crim- 
inals belonging  to  another.  There  was,  therefore,  every  reason  to 
make  the  cost  of  prisons  a  charge  upon  the  imperial  rather  than  the 
local  exchequer. 

To  remedy  these  anomalies  and  establish  one  uniform  system  has 
been  the  primary  object  in  view,  both  with  the  framers  of  the  Bill 
and  those  who  since  it  passed  have  been  intrusted  with  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  Act.  A  prisoner's  life,  from  first  to  last,  in  one  of  Her 
Majesty's  local  prisons  is  now  much  the  same  everywhere.  He  is 
bathed  and  cleansed  on  reception;  the  doctor  sees  him  and  certifies 
to  the  class  of  labor  he  is  fit  to  perform;  the  chaplain  makes  a  note 
of  his  antecedents,  of  his  education,  and  of  his  religious  knowledge. 
He  is  then  passed  into  the  main  prison,  inducted  into  his  cell;  the 
rules  are  explained,  the  task  he  must  perform  pointed  out  to  him. 
This  cell,  except  for  chapel  or  exercise,  whether  in  the  yards  or  upon 
the  treadwheels,  he  does  not  leave  for  a  month,  if  his  sentence  ex- 
tends to  that  period.  During  that  month  he  is  allowed  bedclothes, 
but  no  mattress;  his  diet  is  restricted,  and  his  labor — of  the  kind 
known  as  first-class — continues  for  ten  hours.  At  the  termination  of 
a  month  he  is  permitted  to  pass  on  to  second-class  labor,  he  may  com- 
mence to  acquire  a  trade,  he  may  occasionally  leave  his  cell  to  work 
with  others  like  kitnself,  but  in  strict  silence,  and  only  during  good 
behavior.  After  the  first  three  months  he  may  see  his  friends  once, 
and  write  to  them  once;  his  diet  becomes  fuller  and  more  varied; 
he  may  earn  a  substantial  sum  in  the  shape  of  a  few  shillings  to  help 
him  on  his  release.     All  this  time,  however,  he  is  liable  to  forfeit  any 


CRIMINAL    ENGLAND.  258 

privileges  lie  has  earned,  and  to  suffer  other  inflictions  for  mi  son- 
duet.  He  may  have  a  few  hours  in  a  dark  cell,  may  be  restricted  bo 
bread  and  water  fare  for  two  or  three  days;  and  for  longer  periods 
to  short  commons,  of  which  Indian  meal  and  potatoes  form  the  staple 
food.  His  health  the  while  is  carefully  tended.  He  is  continually 
weighed;  if  he  falls  away  in  flesh,  or  suffers  from  bodily  ailments  he 
is  prescribed  for  or  admitted  into  hospital  His  moral  welfare  is 
equally  regarded:  he  has  to  attend  daily  service  in  the  chapel,  must 
attend  school,  and  accept  the  ministrations  of  the  chaplain  in  r 
privacy  of  his  cell.  If  at  the  time  of  his  release  he  is  destitute,  lit- 
is clothed  decently,  provided  with  food,  and  a  railway  warrant  to 
pass  him  on  to  his  home,  if  remote  from  the  locality  of  the  prison. 
This  treatment  under  the  new  regime  may  not  differ  in  general 
outlines  from  that  pursued  under  the  old;  but  it  is  at  least,  nowa- 
days, uniform  in  every  respect.  The  prisoner  sentenced  in  North- 
umberland finds  in  Morpeth  and  Newcastle  jails  precisely  the  same 
punishment  as  the  man  in  Bodmin  or  Exeter,  in  Coalbath  Fields, 
Carnarvon,  Maidstone,  or  Carlisle.  The  hours  of  labor  are  now 
everywhere  the  same;  the  character  of  the  labor  also,  the  diet,  the 
forfeitures  for  misconduct,  the  marks  to  be  earned  by  industry,  and 
the  gratuities  in  cash  which  follow  the  marks.  Other  advantages 
may  be  expected  to  follow  from  this  unified  administration.  There 
is  the  reduction  in  expenditure  gained  by  closing  nearly  half  the 
whole  number  of  prisons  and  concentrating  all  prisoners  in  those 
that  remain,  there  having  been  for  many  years  cells  available  in 
excess  of  numbers  to  fill  them,  but  which  were  wasted  and  could 
not  be  utilized  from  want  of  powers  to  transfer  prisoners  from  prison 
to  prison.  There  will  also  be  the  increased  earnings  of  pi-isoners 
from  the  more  scientific  adaptation  of  their  labor,  from  the  facility 
of  concentrating  prison  tradesmen  in  special  trade  prisons,  and  gen- 
erally from  the  development  of  the  industrial  instruction  of  prisoners, 
which  a  strong  central  authority  is  nearly  certain  to  bring  about. 

There  has  been  no  strongly-marked  alteration  in  the  manner  of 
carrying  out  a  sentence  of  penal  servitude  in  recent  years,  but  the 
system  is,  notwithstanding,  little  known,  and  there  are  people  wh  > 
still  talk  of  the  hulks  and  transportation  as  though  these  old-fash- 
ioned outlets  for  criminality  were  now  in  existence.  As  a  matter  oi 
fact,  no  convict — the  name  is  specially  reserved  for  all  sentenced  to 
death  or  penal  servitude — leaves  the  kingdom,  except  as  in  the  first 
case  by  the  intervention  of  the  public  executioner.  Penal  servitude 
is  inflicted  at  the  great  convict  establishments.  The  convict,  as  so  n 
as  convenient,  is  removed  from  the  local  prison,  where  since  the  as- 


254  ENGLAND. 

sizes  he  has  remained  in  durance,  to'Millbrmk  or  Pentonville.  Here 
he  is  subjected  to  precisely  the  same  process  as  in  the  local  prisons; 
but  at  the  end  of  nine  months,  according  to  the  doctor's  decision, 
he  passes  on  to  a  public  works  prison,  to  Chatham,  Dartmoor,  Ports- 
mouth, Portland,  or  the  like.  Arrived  there,  he  is  turned  out  with 
hundreds  of  associates  to  labor  on  fortifications,  breakwaters,  dock- 
yard extensions,  and  so  forth.  How  substantial  is  the  work  thus 
performed  may  be  judged  by  all  who  have  seen  these  monuments  to 
convict  labor  at  the  various  stations  above  named.  Life  in  a  con- 
vict prison  is  certainly  not  rose-colored.  Labor  begins  at  daylight 
and  is  continued,  with  an  interval  for  dinner,  until  sundown;  the 
fare  is  in  quality  excellent,  but  in  quantity  not  too  full.  An  abso- 
lute submission  to  authority,  the  surrender  of  all  personal  volition, 
unhesitating  obedience,  constant  cleanliness  and  orderliness  are  not 
the  least  irksome  of  the  restraints  the  criminal  has  to  endure.  But 
with  all  this  there  is  no  unnecessary  harshness;  the  discipline  is 
firm,  but  never  arbitrary;  the  well-being  of  the  prisoner,  and  his 
protection  from  ill-usage,  are  carefully  provided  for  by  the  constant 
supervision  and  inspection  of  superior  authorities.  Nor  is  the  ele- 
ment of  hope  entirely  absent.  The  "  mark  system,"  as  it  is  called, 
which  has  been  in  force  for  upwards  of  fourteen  years,  puts  it  in  the 
power  of  every  man  to  gain  a  certain  remission  of  his  sentence  by 
his  own  industry.  How  powerfully  this  incentive  acts  in  encourag- 
ing a  man  to  use  his  whole  skill  and  enerq-y  is  seen  in  the  hiqh-class 
work  turned  out  in  the  convict  prisons — in  the  beautiful  stone  dress- 
ing, the  intricate  carpenter's  and  smith's  work,  in  the  employment 
of  convicts  as  bakers,  painters,  engine-drivers,  sawyers,  fitters,  and 
the  like.  A  more  substantial  test,  perhaps,  is  the  money  value  of 
the  work  done.  According  to  the  last  year's  blue  book  the  actual 
earnings  of  some  8,000  convicts,  as  shown  by  exact  calculations,  after 
careful  measurements,  amounted  to  £250,000. 

There  is,  however,  another  and  a  last  stage  through  which  the 
criminal  passes — one  which  is  too  often  only  the  short  breathing- 
space  between  the  termination  of  one  sentence  and  the  commence- 
ment of  another — the  period  when  he  is  once  more  at  large.  This 
has  been  the  subject  of  his  dreams,  sleeping  and  waking.  What 
port  is  to  the  homeward-bound  sailor,  such  is  the  day  of  release  to 
the  prisoner,  only  intensified  a  thousand-fold  in  the  eagerness  of  its 
anticipation.  The  slow  sad  hours  bring  it  round  at  last.  His  hair 
and  beard  are  no  longer  clipped  by  the  prison  barber,  who  cuts 
both  with  the  same  scissors.  He  has  at  length  bridged  over  the 
great  guli  which  has  so  long  separated  him  from  the  rest  of  the 


CRIMINAL    ENGLAND. 

community,  and  he  will  soon  resume  his  place  in  the  world  to  fight 
upon  his  own  account,  to  be  tempted,  no  doubt,  perchance  to  suc- 
cumb only  too  easily  again.     The  attitude  of  the  world  towards  him 
when  he  is  once  more  free  is  perhaps  a  little  too  absolutely  repellant 
and  unrelenting.     It  is  not  alone  that  he  lias  been  photographed 
and  his  signdement  widely  distributed  among  the  police,  that  b 
had  to  submit  to  inspection  at  the  hands  of  the  detective,  and  t1 
he  may  expect  further  continuous  surveillance',  but  he  will  in  m< 
cases  find  it  extremely  difficult  to  earn  an  honest  living,  however  de- 
sirous he  may  be  to  do  so.     His  old  honest  associates — if  he  has  any 
— will  shun  him,  employers  wall  not  care  to  engage  him  lest  their 
other  workmen  should  take  offense.     Most  doors  are  closed  to  him; 
he  is  a  suspicious  character,  not  to  be  trusted  even  when  in  sight. 
What  wonder  that  he  soon  again  falls  away!     That  he  does  so  1 
often  now  than  heretofore  is  very  largely  due  to  the  philanthropic 
efforts  of  the  Discharged  Prisoners'  Aid  Societies,  notably  that  of 
London,  which  is  now  under  royal  patronage,  and  which  does  a  vast 
amount  of  good.     This  society  deals  entirely  with  ex-convicts  from 
the  convict  establishments;  but  there  are  others  in  the  provinces 
which  work  with  much  the  same  good- will  for  the  prisoners  from  1  '"■ 
local  prisons.     In  London,  shortly  before  a  convict  is  due  for  re- 
lease, his  case  is  submitted  to  the  society  and  duly  considered.     If 
accepted — as  it  generally  is,  save  in  the  case  of  some  few  notorious 
criminals,  upon  whom  all  good  offices  would  be  entirely  wasted — 
wdien  the  day  of  release  arrives  the  emancipated  prisoner  is  con- 
ducted privately,  in  plain  clothes,  to  the  society's  office,  whence  he 
is  passed  on  to  some  situation,  as  laborer  or  handicraftsman,  accord- 
ing to  his  qualification.     The  employer  and  the  society  are  usually 
the  only  two  in  the  secret;  the  society  answers  to  the  police,  and 
there  is  no  need  for  the  usual  supervision;  the  man  carries  flu 
fore  no  stigma,  he  has  had  a  fair  start,  and  it  is  mainly  his  own  fault 
if  he  again  falls  away.     This  beneficent  treatment  is  certainly  n  >f 
the  least  efficacious  amonsf  the  various  measures  which  have  con- 
tributed  to  reduce  crime.     By  and  by,  the  reformatories  and  ind as- 
trial  schools  may  convert  the  raw  material  before  it  1 
to  degenerate  into  the  lowest  forms,  improved  police1  arrangements 
may  render  property  more  and  more  safe,  and  the  commission  of 
crime  more  dangerous,  but  these  are  rather  remote  ameliorations. 
Meanwhile  the  Aid  Societies  which  seek  to  rehabilitate  our 
brethren,  which  give  them  a  fresh  start  and  a  new  opportunity 
leading  honest  and  respectable  lives,  are  actually  accompli 
neficent  and  satisfactory  results  day  after  day  in  our  very  midst 


CHAPTER    XY. 

TRAVELING    AND     HOTELS. 

General  View  of  the  English  Railway  System— The  Block  System— Extent  and 
Expenditure  of  Railway  Lines — Speed  and  Comfort — Pullman  Cars — A 
Journey  due  North  from  London — The  Railway  Commissioners — Refresh- 
ment Rooms — Traveling  by  Coach — Different  Kinds  of  Coaching — Posting 
— Bicycling — English  Hotels—Absorption  of  Small  Hotels — Typical  Fre- 
quenters of  Hotels — Hotels  which  are  Survivals  from  the  Past — Their 
Questionable  Comfort. 

THE  entire  length  of  Great  Britain  may  now  be  traversed  for  a 
few  pence  under  three  pounds  sterling.  The  price  of  a  single 
third-class  ticket  from  London  to  John  o'  Groat's — from  King's 
Cross  to  Wick  or  Thurso  Station — is  two  pounds  nineteen  shillings 
and  fourpence.  The  distance  is  as  nearly  as  possible  six  hundred 
and  fifty  miles.  The  time  spent  upon  the  journey  will  be  something 
less  than  twenty-five  hours,  and  the  journey  itself  will  be  accom- 
plished, whatever  class  the  traveler  may  choose,  with  comparatively 
slight  fatigue.  On  the  whole,  the  management  of  the  English  rail- 
ways is  excellent.  The  speed  is  great,  there  is  little  overcrowding; 
the  companies'  servants  are,  though  frequently  overworked,  for  the 
most  part  civil;  and  if,  in  spite  of  the  announcement  forbidding  gra- 
tuities, "  tips  "  are  expected,  railway  porters  are  abundantly  satisfied 
with  vails  of  the  most  modest  amount.  Much  of  the  discomfort 
which  the  English  railway  traveler  experiences,  is  inflicted  on  him 
by  disagreeable  traveling  companions.  Yet  for  one  who  comes 
under  this  category,  how  many  are  there,  whatever  class  the  trav- 
eler may  choose,  who  are  not  merely  unobjectionable  but  welcome 
associates  ?  Let  it  be  assumed  that,  in  common  with  many  excel- 
lent and  respectable  personages  of  a  frugal  turn — officers  of  both 
services,  substantial  agriculturists,  and  minor  dignitaries  of  the 
Church — the  passenger  selects  third-class;  he  will  be  singularly  un- 
fortunate if  he  finds  himself  in  society  to  which  he  can  reasonably 
take  exception.  No  doubt  there  is  plenty  of  rowdyism  in  the  train, 
but  then  rowdyism  is  of  its  essence  gregarious.     It  has  an  ineradi- 


O" 


TRAVELING    AND    HOTELS.  267 

cable  tendency  to  gravitate  to  a  special  part  or  parts  of  thai 
in  motion  which  a  train  may  be  considered  as  being.  There  is  a 
kind  of  Alsatia  in  every  steam  locomotive  bound  on  a  Inn--  journey, 
and  there  is  much  to  be  thankful  for  in  the  fact  that  its  area  is 
rigidly  localized.  The  father  of  a  family  need  be  under  no  appre- 
hension that  he  must  choose  between  first  or  second  class  on  the 
one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  risk,  or  rather  the  strong 
probability  of  a  personal  encounter  with  much  that  is  offensive  and 
disreputable.  E  ail  way  guards  are  quick  judges  of  character — many 
of  them,  too,  with  quite  as  much  a  character  of  their  own,  as  keen 
a  sense  of  humor  and  wit,  as  the  guards  of  the  old  stage-coach — 
and  they  may  be  trusted  to  save  decent  folk,  who  travel  third-class 
on  long  journeys,  exposure  to  any  serious  annoyance.  It  may  be 
added  that  British  exclusiveness,  which  shows  itself  pretty  plainly 
in  the  first-class  carriage,  has  a  tendency  to  disappear  in  the  second 
and  third. 

The  railway  S3'stem  *  of  England  and  Wales  consists  of  just  12,000 
miles  of  line,  of  which  two-thirds  are  in  the  hands  of  the  six  large 
companies — the  Great  Western,  2,059;  London  and  North  Western, 

i  1,632;  North  Eastern,  1,429;  Midland,  1,238;  Great  Eastern,  859; 
Great  Northern,  G40.  Amalgamation  very  early  became  the  order 
of  the  day,  and  is  steadily  on  the  increase,  although  it  is  not  possi- 
ble without  an  Act  of  Parliament.  The  center  of  the  system  is 
London,  and  every  company  which  can  possibly  make  its  way  to 
the  capital  does  not  fail  to  do  so.  At  first  railways  were  worked 
without  fixed  signals,  nor  was  it  till  1838  that  any  regular  code  of 
signals  was  adopted.  Now  the  semaphore,  fitted  with  these,  one 
for  the  up,  and  one  for  the  down  line,  is  in  use  at  all  stations  and 
junctions.  When  the  arm  is  raised  to  the  full  extent  the  line  is 
stopped;  when  it  is  at  an  angle  of  forty-five  degrees  the  need  of 
caution  is  indicated  to  the  driver;  when  it  is  at  rest  the  driver  knows 

'that  he  can  proceed  at  full  speed.  At  night  "line  clear"  is  ex- 
pressed by  a  white  light,  "  caution "  by  green,  "  danger "  by  red. 
The  block  system  provides  that  no  two  trains  shall  be  between  any 
two  block  signal-boxes — these  boxes  being  distant  from  each  other 
from  two  or  three  to  six  or  eight  miles — at  the  same  time  on  the 
same  line.  It  is  to  be  seen  in  its  highest  perfection  on  the  Midland, 
and  it  may  best  be  described  in  Mr.  Parsloe's  own  words: — A,  B, 
and  C,  are  supposed  to  represent  three  block  posts,  and  the  process 

*  For  most  of  the  facts  contained  in  this  brief  account  of  the  English  rail- 
ways I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Joseph  Parsloe's  instructive  little  work  "On  Out 
Railway  System."     (Kegan  Paul.     1878.) 

17 


258  ENGLAND. 

of  signaling  is  thus  carried  on.  On  the  approach  of  a  train  to  A, 
the  signalman  will  call  the  attention  of  B,  and  then  give  the  "Be 
Ready"  signal  on  the  bell  and  the  proper  "Train  Approaching" 
dial  signal.  The  signalman  at  B,  after  having  ascertained  that  the 
line  is  clear  for  the  train  to  run  upon,  must  repeat  the  signals,  and 
when  he  has  received  the  necessary  intimation  from  it  that  he  has 
repeated  them  correctly,  he  must  ply  the  needle  to  "Line  Clear." 
As  soon  as  the  train  has  passed  A,  the  signalman  there  must  give 
the  bell  signal  "  Train  on  Line  "  to  B,  and  the  signalman  at  B  must 
acknowledge  the  signal  and  employ  the  needle.  The  signalman  at 
A  must  then  give  to  B  the  proper  "  Train  on  Line  "  dial  signal;  and 
when  the  signalman  at  B  has  acknowledged  that  signal  and  received 
the  necessary  intimation  from  A  that  his  acknowledgment  is  correct 
he  must  ply  the  needle  on  to  "  Line  Blocked,"  and  then  call  the  at- 
tention of  and  give  the  "Be  Ready"  and  " Train  Approaching "  sig- 
nals to  C.  When  the  train  has  passed  B,  the  signalman  there  must 
call  the  attention  of  A,  and  give  the  proper  signal  indicating  that 
the  line  is  clear  of  the  train,  which  must  be  duly  acknowledged 
by  the  signalman  at  A,  and  so  on  throughout  the  block. 

The  total  working  expenditure  of  the  railways  of  the  United  King- 
dom amounted  in  1876  to  £33,535,509,  the  total  receipts  from  all 
sources  to  £02,215,757.  The  working  expenses  therefore  come  to 
about  half  the  receipts,  but  it  has  been  frequently  asserted  that  min- 
eral traffic  is  carried  at  a  far  greater  expense  than  passenger  traffic. 
The  number  of  miles  travelled  by  all  the  trains  was  215,711,739. 
Exclusive  of  holders  of  season  tickets,  there  were  44,859,060  first- 
class,  60,478,195  second-class,  420,950,034  third-class.  The  author- 
ized capital  amounted  to  £741,802,527.  The  rolling-stock  consisted 
of  12,994  locomotives,  27,191  carriages  for  passengers,  10,485  car- 
riage trucks  and  horse  boxes,  350,121  wagons  for  merchandise 
and  live  stock.  Employment  was  given  by  them  for  between  three 
and  four  hundred  thousand  officials  and  employes.  The  total  of 
trains  every  day  was  1,010.  In  the  process  of  signaling,  during  the 
twenty-four  hours,  100,000  operations  were  performed  by  about 
13,000  hands.  Coming  to  accidents  and  casualties,  during  the  year 
1870,  1,245  persons  were  killed,  4,724  injured,  the  great  majority 
in  each  case  being  railway  servants.  The  total  of  passengers  killed 
was  1  in  3,872,570,  and  of  passengers  injured  1  in  385,807.  The 
proportion  of  railway  servants  killed  was  1  in  410,  and  of  injured  1 
in  86. 

As  regards  speed,  if  not  of  comfort,  in  locomotion  we  have  reached 
a  point  beyond  which  we  are  not  likely  to  go.     From  Bristol  to 


TRAVELING   AND    HOTELS.  259 

Aberdeen,  a  distance  of  800  miles,  which  in  the  old  ooach  times  would 
have  occupied  ten  days,  is  performed  in  eighteen  hours;  from  Lon- 
don to  Holyhead,  260  miles,  in  six  hours  and  forty  minutes;  from 
London  to  Plymouth,  247  miles,  in  six  hours  and  a  quarter.  The 
average  rate  of  speed  at  which  the  quickest  express  on  each  of  the 
great  lines  travels  is  47|  miles  an  hour.  On  two  lines  this  pare  is 
exceeded.  On  the  Great  Northern,  the  train  leaving  London  at  10, 
and  arriving  at  Peterborough  at  11.30,  a  distance  of  7<i',  miles,  goes 
at  the  rate  of  51  miles  an  hour.  On  the  Great  "Western  the  Flying 
Dutchman  leaves  Paddington  at  11.45,  reaches  Swindon,  a  distance 

of  77£  miles,  without  a  single  stoppage,  at  twelve  minutes  after  i 

o'clock,  the  uniform  pace  being  thus  53|  miles.  The  journey  on  this 
line  is,  indeed,  as  far  as  Bath,  the  quickest  in  the  world.  The  dis- 
tance is  1G6'|  miles,  and  is  performed  in  two  hours  and  thirteen  min- 
utes, including  ten  minutes  stoppage  at  Swindon — the  actual  time 
therefore,  spent  in  traveling  is  two  hours  and  three  minutes,  and  the 
pace  is  therefore  something  over  fifty-two  miles  an  hour.  .\-  re 
gards  comfort  and  ease,  the  quality  of  many  of  the  first  and  second 
class  carriages  on  the  Great  "Western  leaves  nothing  to  be  wished 
The  Pullman  cars  were  introduced  into  England  just  five  years 
ago,  in  February,  1871,  but  the  experiment  has  not  proved  quite  as 
successful  as  might  have  been  expected,  and  as  it  deserves.  These 
cars  were  first  used  on  the  Midland  line,  and  contain  both  drawinar- 
rooms  and  sleeping-rooms.  In  the  former  there  are  eighteen  chairs, 
which  can  be  turned  on  their  axle  in  such  a  way  as  to  face  either 
the  window  or  the  center  of  the  apartment;  in  the  latter  there  arc 
sixteen  beds  in  the  main  compartments,  and  six  in  two  private  com- 
partments. These  rooms  on  rails  are  decorated  in  a  very  finished 
and  artistic  manner,  and  at  the  touch  of  a  spring  by  the  side  a  table 
flies  out,  on  which  the  passengers  can  have  a  meal  spread.  Whether 
the  traveler  prefers  the  sociability  of  the  Pullman  cars  or  the  com- 
parative privacy  of  ordinary  English  carriages,  he  cannot  fail  to 
recognize  the  superior  smoothness  of  motion  obtained  on  Mr.  Pull- 
man's spiings. 

An  expedition,  from  the  extreme  south  to  the  extreme  north  of 
the  United  Kingdom,  such  as  that  mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  this 
chapter,  wTill  give  the  traveler  a  comprehensive  idea  of  our  railway 
management  in  its  practical  working,  and  will  acquaint  him  with 
the  many  varying  rates  of  railway  speed.  When  he  has  passed  the 
fringe  of  the  metropolitan  suburbs  -that  vast  reticulation  of  hon 
and  streets,  and  townships,  which  is  overspreading  the  home  coun- 
ties— he  will  fly  forth  with  the  swiftness  of  an  arrow  shot    from  the 


260  ENGLAND. 

bow.  Onward  he  will  be  borne  at  the  same  tremendous  pace.  Only 
one  stoppage  between  London  and  York — at  Grantham — where  en- 
gines are  replenished,  and  passengers,  if  they  wish  it,  refreshed; 
after  York  straight  through  to  Newcastle  without  another  check. 
When  the  train  is  on  Scotch  soil  it  proceeds  circumspectly.  By  the 
time  that  it  has  advanced  into  the  heart  of  the  wilds  and  fastnesses 
of  Caledonia,  its  advance  is  not  so  much  circumspect  as  dilatory. 
In  a  little  time  it  commences  a  series  of  stoppages,  quite  irrespective 
of  the  existence  of  stations,  till  at  last  the  guard  puts  on  the  break, 
and  the  train  is  at  a  standstill,  for  no  other  reason  apparently  than 
that  he  wants  the  engine-driver  to  accommodate  him  with  a  pipe- 
light.  These  are  the  inevitable  incidents  of  railway  traveling  in  the 
far  north  of  Great  Britain,  and  if  one  does  not  happen  to  be  in  a  fe- 
verish hurry  they  give  picturesqueness  and  variety  to  the  trip.  Take 
them  altogether,  and  we  have  marvellously  little  with  which  to  find 
fault  in  the  conduct  of  our  railway  companies.  There  is  no  other 
country  in  the  world  in  which  the  three  great  conditions  of  railway 
traveling  have  been  so  perfectly  secured — multiplication  of  lines, 
concentration  of  communications,  and  rapidity  of  movement.  In 
point  of  punctuality  much  remains  to  be  desired,  especially  on  the 
southern  lines.  Let  there  be  the  slightest  increase  of  traffic,  and  an 
English  train  is  pretty  sure  to  be  late.  This  is  probably  owing  to 
the  practice  of  setting  the  time  bills  with  too  little  allowance  for 
inevitable  accidents,  and  to  the  necessity  of  keeping  a  sharp  look- 
out for  goods  trains.  The  latter  inconvenience  is  being  gradually 
removed  on  the  more  crowded  parts  of  many  railways  by  the  expen- 
sive process  of  laying  down  an  extra  line  of  rails. 

These  advantages  have  not  been  secured  to  the  public  entirely 
by  the  free  action  of  the  railway  companies.  Intrusted  with  vast 
responsibilities  and  possessing  monopolies  which  are  practically  un- 
disputed, the  railway  companies  of  England  have  naturally  become 
the  subjects  of  special  legislation.  An  entire  code  of  railway  law, 
full  of  anomalies  and  absurdities,  has  been  created  in  the  course  of 
the  last  forty  years,  and  in  1878  there  were  upwards  of  4,000  special 
Acts  of  Parliament  relating  to  railways,  in  which  Acts,  and  in  ex- 
tracts from  them  posted  up  at  every  station,  can  be  found  the 
amounts  of  fare  which  each  company  is  authorized  to  charge.*  Of 
these  the  first  is  more  than  a  century  old,  bearing  date  1758,  and 
authorizing  a  railroad — not  worked  by  steam,  of  course — for  the 
carriage  of  coals  to  Leeds,  while  the  first  passenger  railway — the 

*  The  state  of  the  law  on  this  and  kindred  subjects  is  fully  given  in  Hodges' 
"I>w  of  Railways,"  sixth  edition,  by  J.  M.  Lely.     (H.  Sweet.     1876.) 


TRAVELING    AND    HOTELS.  261 

Stockton  and  Darlington — was  authorized  by  an  Act   passed  only 
recently  as  1825.     Not  one  of  the  entire  number  has  reference  t<> 
any  single  railway  company  in  its  integrity,  and  after  a  few  miles 
of  line   have   been  traversed,  we  suddenly  find  ourselves  under  a 
changed  jurisdiction.     In  1844  a  parliamentary  committee  was  ap 
pointed  under  the  presidency  of  Mr.  (Hailstone  to  consider  the  Legal 
status  of  the  railway  companies.     As  one  of  the  consequences  of  tin 
report,  an  Act  was  passed,  sanctioning  the  purchase  of  railways  I 
the  State,  at  any  time  after  the  expiration  of  21  years,*  and  pro 
viding  that  every  railway  company  should  convey  passengers  by  at 
least  one  train  each  way  daily,  at  a  charge  not  exceeding  a  penny  a 
mile.     Ten  years  later,  the  Act  of  Mr.  (now  Lord)  Card  well  was 
passed,  of  which  the  distinguishing  features  were  to  subject  rival 
railway  companies  to  the  legal  obligation  of  joint  action  within  cer- 
tain limits  for  the  public  convenience,  and  to  define  the  liability  of 
the  companies  for  damage  or  loss  of  goods  during  transit.     Fourteen 
years  later,  it  was  enacted  that  the  price  of  fares  should  be  promi- 
nently displayed  at  railway  stations;  that  in  every  passenger  train, 
consisting  of  more  than  one  carriage  of  each  class,  there  should  be  a 
smoking  compartment;  and  that  the  companies  should  furnish,  when, 
applied  to,  particulars  of  then*  charge  for  goods,  enabling  the  public 
to  distinguish  the  relative  cost  of  conveyance  and  loading. 

But  the  most  important  piece  of  railway  legislation  has  been  the 
Act  of  1873,  which  created  a  special  court  with  exceptional  powe.  9 
for  the  exclusive  purpose  of  taking  cognizance  of  a  certain  class  of 
railway  cases,  not  those  in  which  pecuniary  compensation  is  asked 
from  a  company,  but  those  in  which  it  is  demanded  that  a  eonipam 
shall  do  some  specific  act  for  the  benefit  of  the  petitioner,  or  abstain 
from  giving  an  unfair  advantage  to  some  one  else.  The  ordinary 
law  courts  of  the  country  had  proved  unsuitable  for  compelling  rail- 
ways to  prefer  on  proper  occasion  the  public  advantage  to  their  own, 
and  it  was  the  conviction  of  this  unsuitability  that  found  expression 
in  the  report  of  1872  which  recommended  the  appointment  of  the 
Railway  Commissioners.  This  court,  one  of  -whose  members  must 
be  a  person  of  experience  in  railway  management — represented  at 
the  first  appointment  by  Mr.  Price,  formerly  chairman  of  the  Midland 
Railway — and  another  of  whose  members  must  be  experienced  in  law 
— which  was  represented  in  the  first  instance  by  the  late  ~S\r.  Mac 
namara,  an  eminent  lawyer — is  primarily  intrusted  with  the  powers 
given  by  Lord  Cardwell's  Act  to  a  court  of  law;  but  it  has  many  sec- 

*  A  Royal  Commission  appointed  in  18G5  reported  against  the  policy  of  <  I 
ernment  purchase.     The  scheme  embodied  in  the  Act  of  18-H  is  impxactioable. 


262  ENGLAND. 

on  clary  powers  tending  in  the  same  direction,  its  cardinal  object 
being  to  control,  and,  so  far  as  they  involve  public  inconvenience,  to 
counteract,  the  effects  of  the  monopoly  acquired  by  railway  compa- 
nies. The  commission  is,  in  fact,  a  technical  tribunal  for  the  redress 
of  popular  grievances,  the  jurisdiction  of  which  extends  to  Ireland 
and  Scotland;  and  in  view  of  the  great  expense  attendant  upon  rail- 
way litigation,  it  has  been  expressly  provided  that  municipal  and 
other  corporations  may  institute  proceedings  before  it.  The  com- 
missioners themselves,  however,  have  no  power  of  initiative,  and  in 
one  important  point — the  enforcement  of  through  rates — it  is  only 
a  railway  or  canal  company  which  can  set  the  commissioners  in 
motion. 

The  powers  of  the  commissioners  are  as  extensive  as  they  are 
unique.  They  have  rights  of  interference  wider  than  those  vested 
in  other  bodies,  when  the  lives  and  well-being  of  the  public  are 
threatened.  They  have  the  power  of  arbitrating  both  between  dif- 
ferent companies  and  between  the  companies  and  the  public.  The 
right  of  this  or  that  town  to  necessary  accommodation,  better  wait- 
ing-rooms, platforms,  and  covered  spaces;  the  complaints  of  one 
trader  as  to  preferential  rates  or  superior  facilities  accorded  to  an- 
other; the  demand  of  one  company  for  running  powers  over  the 
lines  of  another — these  are  the  kinds  of  cases  in  wdrich  the  inter- 
vention of  the  commission  is  invoked.  Thus,  we  learn  front  the 
last  report  of  the  commission  in  the  year  1877-8,  fourteen  distinct 
judgments  of  the  commissioners  were  pronounced.  Three  of  these 
cases  were  local  complaints  of  the  insufficient  convenience  afforded 
by  the  railways.  In  six  cases  the  commission  had  to  consider  the 
application  of  manufacturing  firms,  who  had  a  grievance  against 
railway  companies.  In  five  the  issue  was  a  dispute  between  rail- 
ways themselves.  Here  we  have  three  distinct  classes  of  questions 
which  it  is  infinitely  better  should  be  decided  without  coming  into 
the  law  courts.  When  once  a  question  of  law  arises,  the  commis- 
sioners are  bound  to  state  a  case  for  a  court  of  law,  although  they 
are  themselves  intrusted  with  the  delicate  duty  of  determining 
whether  a  particular  question  be  one  of  law  or  not.  Nor  could 
there  be  a  better  proof  of  the  soundness  of  the  opinions  given  by 
the  commissioners  than  the  fact,  that  in  almost  every  case  in  which 
the  appeal  has  been  made,  the  courts  have  confirmed  the  award  of 
the  commission. 

But  the  real  question  is,  not  so  much  whether  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  railway  commissioners  shall  be  extended,  as  whether  their  entire 
control  shall  or  shall  not  be  handed  over  to  the  State.     "  Our  rail- 


TRAVELING    AND    HOTELS.  2G3 

ways/'  writes  Mr.  Parsloe,  "are  in  the  hands  of  a  number  of  separate 
bodies  with  conflicting  interests,  each  striving  to  pay  the  besl  dm- 
dend  to  the  shareholders  as  purely  commercial  concerns.  Many  of 
the  companies  professedly  compete  with  each  other,  and  the  result 
is  most  of  the  disadvantages  with  very  few  of  the  ;ui\;ml  >m- 

petition."  *  For  instance,  one  of  the  Midland  Company's  i 
trains  from  the  north  is  due  to  arrive  at  Gloucester  at  6.  I  !  P.  i. ;  tin- 
Great  Western  train  for  the  Swindon  district  leaves  a1  6. 15  p.  l,  and 
there  is  no  other  train  till  12.20  a.  m.  If  therefore,  as  is  almost  in- 
evitable, the  train  is  missed,  there  is  an  interval  of  nearly  si\  hours 
waiting.  As  matters  are,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  public,  sub- 
ject to  the  beneficent  action  of  the  commissioners,  and  the  enlight- 
ened common  sense  of  the  railway  directors,  are  at  the  mercy  of  the 
railway  companies.  It  is  also  indisputable,  that  the  extent  to  which 
railway  competition  is  carried,  giving  us,  instead  of  one  uniform  or- 
ganization, a  complex  and  chaotic  system,  involves  the  profitless  ex- 
penditure of  much  energy  and  money.  If  we  are  to  have  a  perfectly 
harmonious  and  a  truly  economical  railway  system,  it  must  be  one 
dominated  by  the  principle  of  central  control.  Granted,  that  the 
companies  agree  to  a  method  of  amalgamation  and  unity  amongst 
themselves,  all  that  would  have  been  done  would  be  to  substitute  a 
single  colossal  monopoly  for  several  monopolies,  of  which  the  great 
object  would  still  be  not  to  promote  the  public  convenience,  but  to 
put  money  in  the  pockets  of  the  shareholders.  If  it  is  admitted 
that  the  transitionary  state  in  which  our  railway  system  now  is  must 
ultimately  issue  in  the  establishment  of  a  complete  scheme  of  amal- 
gamation, it  is  certain  that  this  can  only  be  by  the  institution  of 
State  control.  The  success  of  a  governmental  administration  of  the 
Post-office  and  the  Telegraph  is  of  course  cited  as  a  preced  al  for 
the  great  change  now  proposed.  If  the  State  management  of  the 
railways  were  to  answer  equally  well,  there  is  no  doubt  that  wo 
should  have  an  immense  increase  of  efficiency  and  economy.  In 
1865  Mr.  Stewart,  for  twenty  years  Secretary  to  the  London  and 
North  Western  Company,  stated  in  his  evidence  before  the  Royal 
Commission,  that  where  the  whole  traffic  of  the  country  worked  in 
unison,  a  saving  of  20  per  cent,  in  expenses  would  at  once  be  <  ffected. 
Again,  under  Government  control  the  majority  of  legal  and  j parlia- 
mentary costs,  which  in  1875  amounted  to  considerably  over  a 
quarter  of  a  million,  would  be  saved.  Thirdly,  the  number  of  sta- 
tions might  be  reduced,  towns  in  which  there  arc  at  present  two 

*  "Our  Railway  System,"  p.  261. 


264  ENGLAND. 

stations  close  to  each  other  having  one.  In  country  villages,  the 
offices  of  railway,  post,  and  telegraph  might  be  concentrated,  the 
functions  of  each  being  disckai'ged  by  the  sanie  person;  and  final- 
ly, it  would  be  possible  greatly  to  lower  the  fees  paid  to  railway 
directors. 

Pending  the  accomplishment  of  changes  so  radical  as  these  in 
our  railway  system,  there  are  minor  reforms  which  it  may  be  prac- 
ticable to  institute  with  comparatively  little  trouble.  It  is  much  to 
be  wished  that  the  Railway  Commissioners  could  turn  their  attention 
more  particularly  than  they  have  hitherto  done  to  our  refreshment- 
room  system.  Nothing  can  be  better  than  the  luncheon  baskets 
with  which  one  is  occasionally  provided  on  a  small  payment  on  the 
Midland  and  some  of  the  south  of  England  hues.  There  are  excel- 
lent dining  or  luncheon  rooms  at  Derby,  Crewe,  Leicester,  York,  and 
other  great  railway  centers,  and  a  capital  meal  may  be  obtained  at 
either,  it  being  always  understood  that  one  reaches  these  spots  at 
the  proper  hours  when  passengers  are  expected  and  the  meals  are 
ready  to  be  served.  The  unfortunate  traveler  who  is  behind  time 
or  who  comes  by  a  slow  train  often  finds  himself  left  out  in  the 
cold.  If  he  has  left  London  without  having  dined  at  5.15  p.  m.,  and 
reaches  York  between  ten  and  eleven — where  he  is  told  that  twenty 
minutes  are  allowed  for  gratifying  the  inner  man — his  case  is  hard 
indeed.  He  enters  the  palatial  saloon  ravenous.  But  there  are  no 
waiters  within  call.  Those  who  presently  make  their  appearance 
walk  about  with  the  dazed  air  of  men  roused  out  of  a  heavy  sleep, 
mechanically  inquire  what  the  famished  pilgrim  will  take,  and  auto- 
matically fall  to  work  to  hew  the  well-worn  joints  and  the  bony 
chicken  that  are  uj)on  the  table.  The  passenger,  if  he  be  wise,  will 
eschew  these  ready-made  suppers,  and  will  content  himself  with  a 
sandwich  and  a  couple  of  hard-boiled  eggs  at  the  refreshment  bar, 
in  a  corner  of  the  room,  if  only  he  is  able  to  gain  his  way  thither 
through  the  group  of  young  men,  inhabitants  of  the  town,  who 
make  it  their  favorite  lounge.  And  there  is  a  lamentable  want  of 
variety  in  the  refreshment  bill  of  fare;  very  scant  is  the  ingenuity 
of  the  refreshment-room  cook.  Here  and  there  soup  may  be  had — 
scalding  hot  water  which  removes  the  skin  from  the  palate,  and 
destroys  all  power  of  taste  for  hours — but  with  this  exception  there 
is  little  relief  from  the  weary  round  of  ham  and  beef  sandwiches, 
pork  pies,  sausage  rolls,  stale  buns,  and  fossil  cakes.  None  of  those 
appetizing  dainties  which  greet  one  at  Amiens,  Dijon,  or  Macon,  the 
fresh  roll  neatly  bisected  and  filled  with  a  cold  cutlet  or  a  slice  of 
galantine.     No  fruit   but  sour  oranges,  no  drink  but  deleterious 


TRAVELING    AND    HOTELS.  266 

spirits,  or  British  Boer.     The  stony-eyed  damsels  maki   H 
wait  upon  you,  the  charges  are  exorbitant,  the  food  must  illy 

be  bolted  standing,  amid  the  cry,  "Take  your  seats  for  the  North," 
and  loud  ringing  of  bells.  No  -wary  traveler  will  nowadays  'isk 
present  discomfort  and  future  indigestion  by  trusting  ti>  railway 
bars  for  refreshment.  He  will  rather  take  with  him  all  thai  he 
requires  from  home. 

But  there  are  other  modes  of  traveling  in  England   than  by 
steam.     It  is  noticeable  that  the  hansom  cab  t!  England 

only,  and  thus  it  was  with  some  degree  of  special  propriety  that 
Lord  Beaconsfield  once  spoke  of  it  as  the  "gondola  of  London." 
In  New  York,  the  streets  -of  which  arc  perfectly  flat,  hansoms  are 
not  used,  and  tramway  cars  take  the  place  of  all  kinds  of  cabs. 
Possibly  the  same  thing  may  some  day  be  witnessed  in  London,  and 
though  the  City  of  London  uncompromisingly  opposes  all  Legisla- 
tion of  this  kind,  the  number  of  bills  for  procuring  tramways  intro- 
duced to  Parliament  increases  each  session.  Meanwhile,  although 
a  perfect  roadway  has  still  to  be  found — asphalt  being  too  slippi 
for  safety — our  vehicles  on  wheels  travel  almost  as  smoothly,  when 
the  springs  are  in  good  order,  over  the  surface  of  the  London  si  reets 
of  to-day,  as  if  they  were  upon  rails;  and  both  in  London  and  the 
great  provincial  capitals,  the  omnibuses  and  cabs  are  as  satisfactory 
as  is  consistent  with  the  low  fares  charged.  The  coach  not,  indeed, 
the  mail-coach — still  exists  as  an  institution.  The  north  of  En- 
gland, Scotland,  Wales,  and  the  west  of  England,  are  the  parts  in 
which  coaching  mostly  survives.  Ten  years  ago  the  distance  be- 
tween Thurso  and  Golspie — about  a  hundred  miles- — was  only  to  be 
done  by  coach.  There  was  then  a  famous  Jehu  in  those  regions,  by 
name  Tom  Brown,  wdiose  Northumbrian  "bun-"  must  still  dwell  in 
the  ears  of  many  a  Scotch  tourist.  He  managed  his  team  in  true 
artistic  fashion,  and  he  was  never  without  an  excellent  team  t<>  man- 
age. The  roads,  though  often  steep,  and  even  precipitous  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Helmsdale,  were  generally  kept  in  first-rate  condi- 
tion. Belays  of  differently  built,  bred,  and  trained  steeds  awaited 
the  traveler,  according  to  the  natural  characteristics  and  difficulties 
of  the  coming  stage.  The  last,  which  lay  for  several  miles  along  a 
perfect  and  almost  level  road — equal  to  any  one  of  the  Queen's  high- 
ways in  the  south  of  England — was  accomplished  by  four  hor 
nearly  thoroughbred,  which  would  not  have  discredited  a  II 
Park  drag  in  the  season.  The  appointments  of  the  coach,  as  of  I 
steeds  which  drew  it,  were  faultless.  The  harness  was  bright,  p  >1- 
ished,  and  complete  down  to  the  minutest  particular,      i  id 


266 


ENGLAND. 


was  no  ragged  tatterdemalion  perched  up  behind,  who  blew  a  horn 
with  the  feeble  squeaky  effects  produced  by  one  who  is  a  stranger 
to  that  instrument,  but  an  official  who  had  scientifically  studied  its 
music.  There  was  no  such  "  turn  out "  from  the  stables  of  a  coach- 
ing company  or  a  commercial  proprietor  within  the  four  seas. 

But  the  period  of  railway  extension  came.  It  was  no  longer 
necessary  to  go  by  the  high  road  across  the  Ord  of  Caithness,  with 
the  cutting  breezes  of  the  German  Ocean  blowing  full  in  your  face. 
For  the  most  part  the  vehicles  which  are  now  called  coaches  are 
coaches  in  very  reduced  circumstances;  or  it  would  be  more  correct 
to  say  that  they  are  not  really  coaches  at  all,  but  have  rather  the  ap- 
pearance of  cast-off  chariots,  which  in  better  days  may  have  figured 
in  the  triumphal  procession  of  traveling  circus  companies.  In  many 
portions  of  Wales,  coaching  of  a  hind  still  goes  on.  But  when  once 
the  coach  is  considered  only  as  a  convertible  term  for  a  tourist's 
van;  when  it  ceases  to  be  essential  to  the  regular  traffic  of  the 
district;  when,  above  all  things,  it  has  lost  the  official  dignity  of 
carrying  Her  Majesty's  mails,  you  know  what  to  expect.  The  inside 
is  not  too  clean  and  not  too  sweet.  The  passengers  clamber  up  to 
the  roof  anyhow.  There  is  no  longer  any  prestige  attaching  to  the 
occupancy  of  the  box-seat.  The  charioteer  is  a  casual  post-boy,  and 
not  a  coachman;  the  team  is  made  up  of  odd  horses,  and  neither 
driver  nor  traveler  takes  any  pride  in  the  business.  It  will  be  gen- 
erally found  that  the  coaches,  which,  a  glance  at  Bradshaw  is  suffi- 
cient to  show,  are  announced  to  run  short  or  moderately  lengthy 
distances  in  various  regions  of  England,  belong  to  railway  companies 
that  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  carrying  then-  lines  to  the  extreme 
point  which  tourists  desire  to  reach.  There  are  some  obstacles 
which  even  modern  engineering  science  fails  to  overcome;  hence 
the  survival  of  the  coach  as  a  confession  of  the  limitations  imposed 
by  nature  on  human  enterprise.  From  Bideford  in  Devon  to  Bucle 
in  Cornwall  is  a  fair  run  for  a  well-appointed  coach — a  coach  which 
is  on  the  whole  as  favorable  a  specimen  of  its  kind  as  any  to  be  found 
in  England — and  it  is  but  a  very  short  time  since  other  coaches  fully 
equal  to  it  were  common  enough.in  North  Devon  and  West  Somerset. 
They  have  either  disappeared  entirely  or,  obeying  that  law  of  dete- 
rioration which  seems  the  destiny  of  the  public  vehicle,  they  exist 
merely  as  tourists'  vans  during  the  excursionist  season,  to  begin 
where  the  steam  locomotive  ends.  They  would  not,  indeed,  give 
quite  so  severe  a  shock  to  those  who  will  never  lose  then-  devotion 
to  the  ideal  of  the  Regulator  and  the  Quicksilver  Mail  as  the  con- 


veyances which  pass  for  coaches  in  the 


Isle  of  Wight. 


These  may 


TRAVELING    AND    HOTELS.  267 

do  their  best  to  struggle  against  the  lot  which  is  reloj  atir  ;  them 
to  tlie  category  of  the  omnibus  and  the  carri  t,  but  their 

appearance  bewrayeth  them,  and  they  arc  melancholy  <•  as 

that  the  coach  has  no  longer  an  independent  existence  of  its  owj 

that  it,  or  something  which  affects  its  name,  ami  makes  a  vain  show 
of  perpetuating  its  traditions,  is  useful  as  enabling  th<  fcravi  1<  r  to 
perform  the  fag  end  of  a  journey,  but  that  it  is  an  adjunct,  and  not 
an  essential  feature  in  the  traveler's  programme.     Perhi  need- 

less to  say  that  if  it  is  desired  to  see  a  coach  which  is  a  faithful,  and 
not  an  unflattering  reproduction  of  the  artistic  stage  coach  of  the 
old  regime,  it  is  necessary  to  go  no  farther  than  to  flic  White  Eorse 
Cellars  in  Piccadilly.  Nor  can  a  short  summer  holiday  he  spent 
more  pleasantly  than  by  securing  an  outside  seat  on  one  of  these, 
under  the  skilled  pilotage  of  Sir  Henry  de  Bathe,  Captain  Candy,  or 
some  other  amateur  whip,  enjoying  the  drive  to  Dorking,  St.  Albans, 
Leatherhead,  Sevenoaks,  or  Windsor.  Pleasant  companions — a  team 
of  spanking  horses,  changed  every  ten  miles — England  in  lull  bloom 
of  leaf  and  flower — will  combine  to  make  many  a  modern  spirit 
regret  the  methods  of  locomotion  of  the  past. 

The  gaps  in  our  railway  system  cause  a  very  comfortable  posting 
business  to  be  done  in  different  parts  of  England,  and  there  are 
certain  towns  and  villages  where  the  excellence  of  the  horses  pro- 
curable may  still  fairly  surprise  the  traveler.  In  the  neighborhood 
of  all  great  houses  one  may  be  sure  of  a  capital  one-horse  chaise  or 
carriage  and  pair  within  call  of  the  railway  station.  The  proprietor 
of  these  vehicles  makes  a  very  good  thing  of  it  during  the  visiting 
season.  The  most  liberal  of  English  hosts  is  apt  to  entertain  a 
decided  objection  to  sending  his  horses  out  of  his  stable  to  fetch 
his  guests;  it  would  indeed  be  impossible  for  him  to  do  so,  for  if 
he  entertains  on  any  considerable  scale  his  visitors  are  incessantly 
coming  and  going.  In  a  country  town  which  has  in  it^  neighbor- 
hood the  residence  of  a  great  county  magnate  and  other  gentlem<  n 
of  position,  there  is  always  abundance  of  posting  work  out  of  the 
London  season;  and  posting  masters  frequently  make  a  point  of 
keeping  an  enlarged  stable  during  this  period  of  the  year.  The 
same  remark  is  applicable  to  the  hotels  in  the  hearts  of  districts 
much  affected  by  tourists.  Side  by  side  with  the  coaching  revival 
we  have  seen  the  institution  of  the  driving  tour  popularized  to 
high  degree.  But  the  driving  four  is  not  for  everj  one,  and  there 
are  crowds  of  travelers  during  tins  season  of  the  year  who  make  it 
a  point  of  enjoying  as  much  as  they  can  of  the  pleasures  of  the  road 
in  the  roomy  barouches  and  other  open  vehicles,  which  are  on  1. 


268 


ENGLAND. 


at  the  hotels  or  the  livery  stables  of  the  pleasure  resorts  which  they 
chiefly  affect.  It  is  not,  indeed,  an  inexpensive  mode  of  enjoyment, 
but  then  the  holiday  outing  is  only  an  annual  event.  Altogether  it 
is  possible  to  get  more  comfort  and  pleasure  on  wheels  in  England 
than  in  any  country  in  the  world,  and  the  manner  in  which  we  still 
combine  the  locomotion  which  is  as  old  as  civilization  with  that 
which  dates  back  from  the  discovery  of  steam  insures  us  a  certain 
variety  and  picturesqueness  which  the  holiday  traveler  will  be  loth 
to  surrender. 

The  bicycle  fills  a  place  too  important  to  be  omitted  from  any 
survey  of  the  various  modes  of  traveling  in  England.  In  some  coun- 
try districts,  it  is  the  locomotive  on  which  the  postman  performs  his 
long  and  weary  round,  and  on  which  the  Inland  Revenue  official 
makes  his  circle  of  inspection.  Holiday  tours  in  all  parts  of  the 
United  Kingdom  are  taken  on  it  by  the  young  men  of  our  complex 
and  prosperous  middle  class;  and  so  popular  have  these  bicycle 
trips  become,  that  many  a  wayside  inn  which  was  doing  a  brisk 
business  in  the  old  coaching  days,  and  which  the  railways  had  de- 
prived of  its  customers,  has  commenced  to  revive  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  new  movement  on  wheels.  There  are  bicycling  clubs  in 
every  part  of  England,  which  have  then  periodic  meetings.  A  fa- 
vorite rendezvous  in  the  neighborhood  of  London  is  Bushey  Park, 
and  there,  when  the  weather  is  fine,  as  many  as  a  thousand  bicyclists 
congregate.  During  the  summer,  too,  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  when 
the  business  traffic  of  the  day  is  done,  and  the  streets  are  clear,  an 
active  scene  may  often  be  witnessed  by  gaslight.  Under  the  shadow 
of  the  Bank  and  the  Exchange,  the  asphalt  thoroughfare  is  covered 
with  a  host  of  bicycle  riders,  performing  a  series  of  intricate  evolu- 
tions on  then  iron  steeds. 

For  some  years  past  the  simple  English  inn  has  been  gradually 
disappearing.  Much  of  the  change  is  due  to  the  influence  of  rail- 
ways. The  typical  English  hotel  of  the  period  is  a  huge  caravan- 
serai, like  that  at  Charing  Cross  or  the  St.  Pancras  Railway  Station, 
situated  nearly  always  close  to,  or  forming  part  and  parcel  of,  the 
terminus  itself.  The  small  hotels,  which  are  the  survivals  of  an 
earlier  period,  scarcely  contrive  to  eke  out  a  precarious  existence. 
The  chief  characteristics  of  the  new  hotels  are  the  ubiquitous  Ger- 
man waiters  and  the  sameness  of  the  food.  With  two  highly  com- 
mendable qualities  they  may  be  credited.  In  the  first  place,  they 
are  uniformly  well  ventilated  and  cleanly;  in  the  second  place,  no 
fault  can  be  found  with  bedrooms,  beds,  and  bed-linen,  and  it  is  al- 
ways possible  to  obtain  a  sponge  bath  for  the  asking.     Although  in 


TRAVELING    AA'D    HOTELS,  •_><;•) 

England  there  is  nothing  like  the  organized  hotel  life  of  N<  w  fork, 

\  there  are  certain  distinct  types  of  English  hold  habitues;  thus  in 
London  there  are  certain  establishments  which  are  patronized  for 
the  most  part  by  regular  customers,  amongst  whom,  H  maj  be  r.  - 
marked,  a  personal  acquaintance  and  a  cert. tin  BOrt  of  social  I, 
masonry  exist.  The  military  element  is  common  to  most  of  thi 
particularly  in  the  principal  garrison  towns.  The  house  which 
the  head-quarters  of  the  London  coaching  movement  has  among  its 
regular  visitors  every  sort  of  gentleman  who  takes  an  interest  in  bfa 
road  and  its  resuscitated  glories.  Another  institution  belonging  to 
the  same  class — that  of  the  hotel  which  is  a  connecting-bnk  between 
the  extinct  tavern  and  the  latter-day  club — is  a  great  place  of  resort 
for  fashionable  Americans  and  for  opulent  foreigners.  There  is, 
too,  the  hotel  which  is  the  home  of  diplomatists,  just  as  there  are 
hotels  which  are  specially  frequented  by  members  of  municipal 
bocbes,  who  have  come  up  to  London  on  business  connected  with 
their  towns.  Country  solicitors,  especially  from  the  north,  put  up 
at  the  older  hostelrics  in  Covent  Garden.  In  the  provinces,  artists 
and  sportsmen  affect  the  smaller  hotels,  while  the  I  er  find  a 
regular  succession  of  customers  in  young  men  of  means,  who, 
before  they  settle  down  to  domestic  life,  wish  to  see  a  little  of  the 
world,  and  like  to  see  it  in  hotels;  in  middle-aged  bachelors,  who 
beguile  their  celibacy  by  travel  and  shrink  from  the  cares  of  house- 
keeping; in  husbands  and  wives  who  are  without  children,  or  hav- 
ing children,  have  seen  them  fairly  started  in  life;  and  above  all.  in 
widows  who  have  money,  and  who  are  fond  of  the  excitement  of 
travel.  The  commercial  traveler  is  of  course  to  be  found  in  all 
classes  of  hotels,  according  to  his  pretensions,  but  mostly  in  hotels 
where  he  reigns  supreme. 

Hotel  life  is  not  yet  fully  naturalized  among  us.  We  have  bid 
adieu  to  the  old  regime,  but  have  not  become  thoroughly  accus- 
tomed to  the  new.  Only  a  small  percentage  of  Englishmen  and 
Englishwomen  really  enjoy  the  tumultuous  existence  which  is  passed 
amid  the  hubbub  of  departures,  arrivals,  and  tables  d'hote.  The 
table  d'hote  system  is  carried  to  an  extent  that  scarcely  suits  the 
English  nature.  It  is  well  enough  to  take  our  dinners  at  a  common 
table,  at  which,  after  an  awkward  interval  of  blank  silence  or  jerky 
utterance,  we  begin  to  feel  that  our  next-door  neighbor  is  of  a  hu- 
manity like  unto  our  own,  and  that  we  have  not  committed  any  un- 
pardonable breach  of  the  proprieties  in  opening  a  conversation. 
There  are  yet  plausible  reasons  for  maintaining  the  old-fashioned 

'    and  much-abused  British  reserve.     Most  of  us  feel  that  opening  up 


270  ENGLAND. 

conversational  acquaintance  with  strangers  is  a  terrible  risk.  There 
is  no  fear,  of  course,  of  insult,  or  that  our  pockets  will  be  picked, 
but  there  is  the  possibility  of  being  bored.  The  stranger  may  be 
diametrically  our  opposite;  conservative,  while  we  are  liberal;  gar- 
rulous, while  we  hate  to  listen;  above  all,  he  may  be  indiscreet,  and 
may  tempt  us  into  the  expression  of  opinions  which  we  do  not  care 
to  wear  upon  our  sleeve.  Our  privacy  is  thus  intruded  ivpon,  we 
find  ourselves  talking  to  the  table,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  dead  silence 
confessing  that  we  don't  like  haricots  blavcs,  or  recording  our  enthu- 
siasm for  small  beer.  These  are  the  dread  reasons  which  seal  the 
lips  of  so  many  in  a  strange  company,  especially  at  a  strange  table 
d'hote.  And  if  this  be  true  at  dinner-time,  it  is  a  thousand-fold 
more  so  at  9  a.  m.  We  Englishmen  are  not  gregariously  disposed 
at  breakfast-time.  The  attempt  to  accommodate  the  British  break- 
fast to  the  manner  of  the  French  dejeuner  is  an  experiment  of  doubt- 
ful wisdom.  The  Englishman  who  hears  that  the  first  meal  of  the 
day  is  served  only  between  half-past  eight  and  eleven  o'clock  is  con- 
scious of  an  interference  with  his  liberties,  which  he  resents.  Nor, 
at  this  early  hour,  is  he  the  most  companionable  of  creatures.  He 
has  not  got  rid  of  a  sort  of  moral  goose-skin.  He  is  often  not  much 
more  than  half  awake.  He  is  far  from  disposed  to  enter  into  con- 
versation with  casual  acquaintances.  He  is,  to  speak  the  plain  truth, 
a  trifle  sulky,  and  a  great  deal  pre-occupied.  He  may  have  a  fine 
appetite  for  ham  and  eggs,  broiled  soles  and  rashers,  but  he  has  a 
wish  to  avoid  the  scrutiny  of  his  fellows  while  he  gratifies  it.  He 
has  the  contents  of  his  letters  to  digest,  or  he  has  the  campaign  of 
the  day  which  lies  before  him  to  meditate. 

But  if,  as  regards  the  table  d'hote  arrangement,  we  experience 
some  of  the  difficulties  and  inconveniences  incidental  to  a  period  of 
transition,  the  student  of  human  nature  is  indebted  to  it  for  a  thou- 
sand diverting  and  edifying  opportunities.  He  enters  the  hotel 
drawing-room,  and  he  discovers  a  miscellaneous  company,  of  which 
each  member  is  conspicuously  failing  in  the  attempt  to  seem  thor- 
oughly at  ease.  There  is  a  recently  married  couple  affecting  to  take 
an  interest  in  the  newspapers  of  the  day,  betraying  the  while  a  con- 
sciousness of  the  insincerity  in  a  little  giggle.  There  is  the  family 
group — father,  mother,  two  daughters  and  a  son — exchanging  com- 
monplace remarks  in  a  whisper.  There  are  two  maiden  ladies  who 
ask  each  other  whether  to-morrow  will  be,  fine  in  an  awed  under- 
tone. There  is  the  senior  resident  of  the  establishment,  who  has 
taken  up  a  position  on  the  hearth-rug,  and  who  speaks  in  a  voice 
ostentatiously  loud,  but  decidedly  uneasy,  nevertheless,  for  the  pur- 


TRAVELING    AND    HOT. 


pose  of  proclaiming  that  he  is  quite  at  home.  Finally,  there  aro 
numerous  other  gentlemen  and  ladies  who  are  doing  nothing  in  par- 
ticular, but  trying  how  to  look  indifferent  to  all  thai  is  g  ting  on 
around  them.  Dinner  is  announced,  and  the  senior  reetidenl  who 
is  a  sort  of  dean  of  the  establishment,  and  who  (lie  place  <>f 

honor,  on  the  same  principle  that  the  oldest  ambassador  at  :i  Euro- 
pean capital  presides  at  a  conference — leads  the  way.  Any  tiling 
like  a  flow  of  nmtual  confidence  at  table  is  exceptional,  and  the  pre- 
vailing attitude  is  one  of  unsociabilhVy,  intensified  by  profound  dis- 
trust Gentlemen  and  ladies  who  are  seated  next  to  each  other  are 
in  painful  doubt  as  to  whether  it  is  or  is  not  the  right  thing  to 
speak.  Even  when  the  decision  has  been  taken,  and  the  "  May  I 
trouble  you  for  the  salt?  "  has  been  followed  with  some  remarks  on 
the  actual  state  of  the  weather  to-day,  and  its  possible  condition  to- 
morrow,^ the  interlocutors  have  not  entirely  shaken  off  the  native 
influences  of  suspicion  and  constraint. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

EDUCATIONAL    ENGLAND. 

Past  and  Present — Education  Acts  of  1870  and  1876 — What  these  have  done  and 
how  received  by  the  English  People — Educational  Machinery  previously  in 
Use  in  England — The  Gradual  Awakening  to  Educational  Wants — Working 
of  School  Board  System  described — A  Visit  to  a  National  Elementary 
School — General  Character  of  Teaching — Visit  of  Inspector — The  Passage 
from  Primary  Schools  to  Secondary  Schools — Endowed  Schools — How  af- 
fected by  Recent  Legislation — Social  and  Moral  Results  of  New  System — 
Public  Schools,  Old  and  New — Effect  of  Competitive  Examinations  xipon 
the  Schools — The  Public  Schools  and  the  Public  Service — Schools  and  Uni- 
versities— Academic  Reforms  accomplished  and  pending — National  Work 
done  by  the  Universities — The  Profession  of  Teacher — Bad  Secondary 
Schools  and  Proposed  Remedies — Are  more  Inspectors  wanted? — Duties 
of  Parents — Our  Public  School  System — The  English  School-boy — General 
Improvement  in  the  Type — Feminine  Education — General  Review  and 
Questions  for  the  Future. 

THE  national  machinery  which  now  exists  in  England  for  placing 
a  career  of  some  kind  within  the  reach  of  all  may  be  said  to 
date  from  1870.  Before  this  time  clever  and  industrious  boys,  born 
in  lowly  stations,  became  powerful  and  distinguished  men,  and 
were  the  more  respected  because  they  were  self-made,  but  the  dis- 
cipline and  instruction  which  helped  them  to  the  accomplishment 
of  these  results  were  not  supplied  by  the  State.  Their  success  was 
either  the  result  of  their  own  enterprise  and  effort,  or  of  the  private 
and  voluntary  assistance  which  their  talents  and  perseverance  se- 
cured. The  lad  of  exceptional  brightness,  who  was  a  cottager's  son 
in  the  village  school,  attracted  the  notice  of  the  parson  or  the  squire, 
or  of  some  member  of  the  family  of  either.  News  spread  of  the  in- 
tellectual promise  of  the  boy,  and  a  philanthropic  patron  interested 
himself  in  his  case.  If  it  was  the  clergyman,  he  perhaps  instructed 
the  rising  prodigy  for  a  few  hours  every  week  in  the  rectory  study, 
in  Latin  or  Greek,  history  or  mathematics.  By  and  by  the  time 
came  when  it  was  desirable  that  the  spur  of  competition  should  be 
applied,  or  that  the  young  scholar  should  have  the  advantage  of  a 
deeper  and  a  wider  training  than  the  rector  could  give.     The  good 


EDUCATIONAL   ENGLAND.  27.1 

man  enlisted  the  sympathy  of  friends  on  behalf  of  his  prot£g£,  se- 
cured him  a  nomination  to  the  foundation  of  one  of  our  big  scho 
or  else  undertook,  in  conjunction  with  others,  to  be  responsible 
the  costs  of  his  teaching.  The  lad  grew  in  favor  ami  in  knowledj 
he  rose  in  quick  succession  through  the  different  forms  of  the  school, 
Avon  a  scholarship,  and  went  to  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  the  laureate 
of  the  freshmen  of  his  year.  Then  his  fortune  was  as  good  as  made. 
He  might  be  independent  of  his  benefactors  from  that  time,  might 
even  trust  to  repay  them  in  the  future  the  money  they  had  ex- 
pended on  him  in  the  past.  He  would  finish  up  his  college  course 
with  a  First  Class  and  a  Fellowship,  would  go  into  the  Chinch  or 
the  Car,  would  make  himself  a  name  as  a  classical  editor,  would  per- 
haps climb  by  a  long  ladder  of  learned  works  to  the  episcopal  bench, 
or,  embracing  the  law  as  a  career,  would  justify  the  help  and  the 
expectations  of  his  friends  by  ending  his  days  as  a  Lord  Chancellor 
or  a  judge. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  our  ideal  village  youth  failed  to  attract  the 
notice  of  some  generous  and  discriminating  patron,  or  if  to  mere 
cleverness  he  did  not  add  an  indefatigable  power  of  taking  pains, 
he  probably  lived  out  his  hfe  in  obscurity,  and  if  he  was  known  as 
more  intelligent  than  his  fellows  might  be  known  also  as  less  well 
conducted.  It  was  thus  simply  a  matter  of  accident  whether  the 
;  cottager's  clever  son  ever  rose  to  the  place  which  his  abilities  en- 
titled him  to  fill,  and  what  was  true  of  the  country  cottager  was  true 
of  the  town  artisan.  In  town  and  country  alike,  there  were  indeed 
schools  for  all  who  cared  to  attend,  or  for  all  who  had  means  and 
leisure  to  attend.  But  there  was  no  scheme  of  national  and  sys- 
tematized teaching — nothing  of  that  educational  apparatus  supplied 
or  guaranteed  by  the  legislature,  which  we  have  now,  and  which 
almost  justifies  the  boast  that  the  son  of  the  peasant  or  mechanic 
may  carry  a  bishop's  miter  or  a  judge's  wig  in  his  school  satchel. 
Children  were  sent  to  school  or  doomed  prematurely  to  depressing 
and  toilsome  labor,  or  left  to  play  about  the  streets  to  develop  into 
pickpockets  and  thieves,  fearing  no  other  authority  but  the  consta- 
ble, according  to  the  whim  of  then*  parents,  and  the  degree  of  re- 
gard paid  to  the  parental  command. 

Contrast  with  this  the  state  of  things  which  prevails  to-day.  A  t 
the  corner  of  a  street,  in  some  crowded  alley  or  reeking  court,  hah' 
a  dozen  children  are  playing,  when  suddenly  a  respectably  dressed 
man,*  with  a  grave  countenance,  steps  up,  asks  a  question  which 

*  Women  are  also  in  some  places  largely  employed  as  visitors. 


274  ENGLAND. 

causes  them  to  flee  on  every  side,  not  however  before  one  or  two 
of  the  unkempt  and  generally  uncared-for  urchins  have  been  fairly 
caught  in  his  grasp.  Or,  threading  his  way  through  a  labyrinth  of 
small  thoroughfares,  and  looking  in  at  the  doors  of  the  wretched 
tenements  which  line  them  on  either  side,  he  stops  at  one,  where  he 
sees  two  or  three  children  of  tender  years  unwashed  and  ill  dressed. 
He  proceeds  to  interrogate  their  mother,  or  the  woman  who  is  in 
charge  of  them,  and  notes  down  her  replies  in  a  pocket-book.  This 
gentleman  is  one  of  the  special  visitors  selected  by  the  Board  within 
whose  district  the  truant  or  absentee  children  may  happen  to  be. 

If  the  reply  given  is  that  the  child  is  attending  a  Board  School, 
then  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  its  efficiency,  and  the  only  question 
asked  is  as  to  the  reason  of  absence.  If  the  establishment  is  not 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  School  Board,  it  is  probably  a  public 
"  elementary  school  within  the  meaning  of  the  Act,"  and  in  that  case, 
too,  nothing  more  will  be  said.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  private 
venture  school,  whose  character  there  is  serious  reason  to  doubt, 
an  inquiry  is  instituted;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  seldom  that 
any  school  is  pronounced  hopelessly  inefficient.  The  machinery  by 
which  the  compulsory  by-laws  are  enforced  is  simple.  Every  School 
Board  employs  a  certain  staff  of  visitors,  each  of  whom  keeps  a  sched- 
ule of  all  the  children  of  school  age  in  the  district.  It  is  the  visitor's 
duty  to  ascertain  that  all  those  boys  and  girls  whose  names  are  down 
upon  his  list  are  being  regularly  educated;  if  any  cases  in  which 
they  are  not  come  before  him,  he  reports  them  to  the  committee  to 
which  these  matters  specially  belong;  the  case  is  inquired  into,  and 
the  next  step  is  the  despatch  of  a  notice  (A)  to  the  parent,  admonish- 
ing him  to  send  the  boy  or  girl  to  school.  If  this  is  not  acted  upon, 
a  second  notice  (B)  requires  the  parent  to  attend  and  explain  the 
reasons  of  his  neglect  before  the  divisional  committee,  the  members 
of  which  have  then  for  the  first  time  cognizance  of  the  matter.  If 
extreme  poverty  is  alleged  the  matter  is  further  investigated,  and  the 
School  Board  may  order  the  payment  of  a  portion  of  the  fees.  If, 
after  receiving  the  second  warning,  the  parent  takes  no  heed,  he  is 
summoned  to  appear  before  a  magistrate,  who  may  impose  any  fine 
not  exceeding  in  amount  five  shillings,  inclusive  of  costs. 

Such,  at  least  is  the  law,  and  it  is  due,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the 
good  sense  of  the  School  Board  authorities,  on  the  other  hand,  and 
more  particularly,  to  the  law-abiding  qualities  of  the  English  people, 
that  it  works  with  so  little  friction.  The  principle  of  compulsion 
which  was  implied  in  the  Education  Act,  and  has  since  been  expli- 
citly asserted  by  the  School  Boards  and  school  attendance  com- 


* 


EDUCATIONAL    ENGLAND.  276 

b  Lttees,  was  one  which,  if  not  in  theory  new  to  the  English  people, 
I  id  in  practice  received  tlte  anticipatory  condemnation  of  those  who 
in  such  a  matter  might  claim  to  bo  considered  experts.  Compulsion, 
indeed,  under  a  certain  shape,  existed  in  the  workhouse,  in  the  in- 
dustrial school,  in  the  training-ship,  and  in  the  half-tune  system,  but 
the  general  adoption  of  the  compulsory  principle  was  pronounced 
impracticable  by  many  well-known  and  experienced  members  of 
Parliament,  while  one  of  the  school  inspectors  declared  his  opinion 
that  if  attempted  to  be  carried  out  it  "would  produce  a  national 
commotion  not  much  less  dangerous  than  that  which  attended  a 
poll-tax."  Again,  a  stipendiary  magistrate  of  the  midland  counties 
said  that  "if  compulsory  attendance  at  school  should  become  the 
law  he  would  refuse  to  administer  it."  What  has  happened?  The 
Education  Act  of  1870  came  into  force  twelve  months  after  it  was 

i  passed;  that  of  1876  began  to  be  applied  in  1877.  These  two  m<  as- 
ures  have  already  covered  the  country  with  a  network  of  School 
Boards  and  attendance  committees — -the  latter  appointed  by  town 
councils  in  urban  districts,  and  boards  of  guardians  in  rural  dis- 
tricts. Attendance  committees  are  invested  with  the  same  power  of 
enacting  compulsory  by-laws  as  the  School  Boards,  and  although 
they  do  not  so  effectually  avail  themselves  of  it  as  School  Boards, 
they  had  succeeded,  in  1878,  in  bringing  another  million  and  three- 
quarters  of  the  population  under  direct  legal  compulsion  to  send 
their  children  to  school.  In  all,  there  were  in  1878  two-thirds  of 
the  population  of  England  and  Wales  under  the  operation  of  com- 
pulsory education. 

It  must  be  always  remembered  that  the  Education  Act  of  1870 
was  not,  like  the  Reform  Act  of  1867,  a  second  installment  of  legis- 
lation of  which  the  first-fruits  had  already  been  tasted;  but  that,  in 
its  strangeness  and  novelty  to  the  English  people,  it  was  absolutely 

f  revolutionary,  that  it  has  signally  interfered  with  the  innate  and 
traditional  English  love  of  personal  independence,  and  that  it  has 
involved  a  heavy  increase  to  the  rates  that  Englishmen  pay.  The 
legislation  of  1870  applied  the  theory,  and  to  some  extent  the  prac- 

I  tice,  of  the  state  system  of  education  in  vogue  in  Prussia  to  free  and 
independent  England.  No  such  organized  intervention  between 
parent  and  child,  no  such  systematic  inquisition  into  those  prri 
affairs  which  Englishmen  are  in  the  habit  of  keeping  religiously  to 
themselves,  had  ever  been  attempted  in  this  country.  Until  the 
passing  of  this  Act,  not  merely  had  the  State  m  tde  no  attempt  \  to 
regulate  the  amount  and  kind  of  teaching  provided  for  En 
children,  but  it  declined  to  recognize  the  existence  of  the  schools 


276  ENGLAND. 

except  when,  they  appeared  as  applicants  for  its  pecuniary  aid, 
Then,  and  only  then,  the  State  sent  agents  of  its  own  to  see  that 
the  conditions  upon  which  this  aid  was  granted  were  not  violated. 
Not  merely  the  foundation  of  the  educational  edifice,  but  the  entire 
fabric,  consisted  of  the  organizations  of  voluntary  enterprise.  The 
Christian  Knowledge  Society  had  established  schools  for  more  than 
a  century;  the  National  Society  had  promoted  the  education  of  the 
poor  in  the  principles  of  the  Established  Church  since  1811;  the 
British  and  Foreign  School  Society,  which  is  antisectarian,  had 
been  at  work  since  1814;  Nonconformists,  Roman  Catholic  and 
Protestant,  notably  the  Wesleyans,  had  their  own  schools  governed 
by  their  own  special  committees.  Add  to  this  the  municipal  schools, 
the  parochial  schools,  the  private  adventure  schools,  and  the  public 
schools  for  the  higher  classes,  the  schools  of  the  Ragged  School 
Union  for  the  lowest  of  all,  and  the  account  of  the  educational  ma- 
chinery of  the  country  previous  to  1870  is  complete. 

It  is  true  that  an  essay  by  John  Foster,  in  1819,  "  On  the  Evils 
of  Popular  Ignorance,"  appealed  by  its  arguments  and  revelations 
to  the  fears  of  statesmen,  and  to  the  philanthropy  of  the  benevolent. 
Lord  Brougham  lent  the  weight  of  his  eloquence  and  influence  in 
the  same  direction,  and  the  commission  known  as  Brougham's  Com- 
mission was  issued.  The  report  of  this  inquiry,  with  its  disclos- 
ures of  ignorance  and  depravity,  shocked  and  alarmed  the  nation. 
Brougham,  by  picturing  the  social  degradation  of  the  country,  ex- 
posing the  "  misdirection,  waste,  and  plunder  of  educational  endow- 
ments," and  by  arguing  that  education  was  the  best  security  for 
order  and  tranquillity,  succeeded  in  arousing  the  authorities  who 
had  been  hitherto  hostile,  indifferent,  or  skeptical.  Still  twelve 
years  passed  before  the  tide  in  favor  of  education  set  in.  States- 
men were  opposed  to  the  movement.  Lord  Melbourne  characteris- 
tically "  questioned  the  advantage  of  general  education  as  a  means 
of  promoting  knowledge  in  the  world,  since  people  get  on  without 
it."  The  Bishoj)  of  Durham  "believed  that  education  was  not  likely 
to  make  its  way  among  the  poor";  and  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  said 
that  if,  when  rector,  he  had  started  a  school  in  his  parish,  the  squire 
would  have  laughed  in  his  face. 

For  the  first  time,  in  1833,  the  private  societies  received  subsidies 
from  the  State.  One  year  later  a  parliamentary  commission  to  in- 
quire into  scholastic  affairs  was  appointed.  In  1839  the  Committee 
of  the  Privy  Council  on  Education  was  formed.  Grants  were  only 
given  henceforth  on  conditions  which  the  Government  laid  down, 
but  though  some  of  our  public  men  ventured  to  anticipate  a  cen- 


EDUCATIONAL    ENGLAND.  277 

tralized  educational  administration  for  the  whole  of  England,  relig- 
ious differences  and  a  popular  jealousy  of  State  interference  ho] 
lessly  barred  the  way.  Subsequent  advances,  indeed,  were  made  in 
the  direction  of  that  goal,  which  was  ultimately  arrived  ai  in  L870: 
first,  by  the  strong  but  unsuccessful  manifestations  of  parliamentary 
and  of  popular  opinion  in  1847;  secondly,  by  the  old  code  of  the 
Committee  of  Council;  thirdly,  by  the  new  code  of  1861;  but  DO 
step  had  been  taken  to  establish  the  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  the 
State  to  step  in  between  parent  and  child. 

The  work  done  by  the  Education  Act  of  1870  may  be  very  brief- 
ly sketched,  and  represents  the  actual  educational  machinery  under 
which  we  are  now  living,  and  are  likely  to  live  for  many  years  to 
come.  The  whole  of  Great  Britain  south  of  the  Tweed  is  covered 
with  a  network  of  school  districts.  Of  these  districts,  some  . 
under  School  Boards  and  others  under  school  attendance  commit- 
tees. Even  in  School  Board  districts  there  are  plenty  of  schools 
under  voluntary  management,  and  in  all  districts  where  there  is 
no  School  Board  the  alternative  is  a  species  of  voluntary  manage- 
ment. School  Boards  have,  with  certain  limits,  and  subject  to  the 
approval  of  the  Committee  of  Council,  and  the  royal  sanction,  plenary 
powers — they  may  make  school  attendance  compulsory  or  permissive, 
deciding  what  excuse  shall  be  accepted  as  valid.  The  School  Boards 
have  also  authority  to  regulate,  subject  to  the  Education  Depart- 
ment, what  extra  subjects  shall  be  taught,  and  whether  religious 
instruction  of  any  kind  shall  be  given.  At  Birmingham  there  is  a 
strong  feeling  against  any  religious  teaching  at  all,  the  simple  read- 
ing of  the  Bible  not  excepted.  In  the  metropolis  there  exists  what 
is  called  the  London  compromise,  which  is  identical  in  principle 
with  the  rule  of  the  British  and  Foreign  School  Society,  and  which 
allows  the  Bible  to  be  read,  instruction  to  be  given  from  it,  and  the 
use  of  prayers  and  hymns.  The  chairman  of  the  London  School 
Board  stated,  in  187G,  that  out  of  120,000  school  children,  Biblical 
instruction  was  only  refused  in  124  cases.  More  than  eighty-three 
per  cent,  of  the  School  Boards  throughout  England  have  sanctioned 
the  reading  and  the  simple  undenominational  teaching  of  the  Bible. 
In  theory,  education  is  not  gratuitous,  although  the  fees  of  the 
poorest  children  may  be  remitted  by  School  Boards,  or  paid 
guardians  in  voluntary  or  Board  schools. 

The  points  of  contrast  between  the  local  School  Board  and  ; 
central  authority  of  the  Education  Department  in  Whitehall  are  fre- 
quent, and  the  control  exercised  by  the  latter  over  the  former  is 
close  and  constant.     No  School  Board  has  the  power  of  erecting 


278  ENGLAND. 

any  new  building  unless  in  the  first  place  the  department  gives  a 
general  approval  of  the  scheme.  The  second  step  is  the  approval 
of  the  site,  the  third  of  the  plan  of  the  proposed  new  building. 
After  these  preliminaries  have  been  complied  with,  the  department- 
may  proceed  to  give  its  approval  to  the  application  of  the  School 
Board  for  permission  to  borrow  money  from  the  Public  Works  Loan 
Commissioners.  Finally,  no  School  Board  can  enforce  its  compul- 
sory by-laws  unless  these  have  received  the  sanction  of  "Whitehall. 

It  also  rests  with  the  Education  Department  to  decide,  from  time 
to  time,  upon  what  conditions  grants  are  to  be  made  to  schools  from 
the  Treasury.  These  grants,  at  present,  are  given  indifferently  to 
all  schools,  whether  Board  or  denominational,  which  satisfy  certain 
conditions,  and  are,  in  legislative  phraseology,  public  elementary 
schools  within  the  meaning  of  the  Act.  In  the  first  place,  religious 
instruction  is  not  to  be  obligatory  on  any  child  attending  school; 
secondly,  religious  instruction,  if  given  at  all,  must  be  given  either 
at  the  end  or  the  beginning  of  school-time;  and  thirdly,  the  school 
is  always  to  be  open  to  Her  Majesty's  inspector.  The  principle 
upon  which  these  grants  are  estimated  is  as  follows.  Four  shillings 
a  year  may  be  claimed  by  the  school  managers  for  every  boy  or  girl 
who  has  attended  the  requisite  number  of  times,  another  shilling  is 
allowed  if  singing  forms  part  of  the  ordinary  course,  and  a  shilling 
more  if  the  discipline  and  the  organization  are  pronounced  satis- 
factory. The  grant  may  be  raised  above  the  figures  already  men- 
tioned provided  that  the  standards  in  which  the  children  pass  their 
examination  are  sufficiently  high.  These  standards  are  six  in  num- 
ber, and  roughly  correspond  to  the  years  of  age  between  7  and  12. 
The  average  fees  charged  in  Board  Schools  are  from  Id.  to  6d.  a 
week,  and  in  no  case  is  a  School  Board  allowed  to  charge  more 
than  9<L 

Let  us  enter  one  of  these  Board  Schools,  and  see  the  educational 
machine  at  work.  The  building  is  handsome  and  roomy,  and  it  is 
only  one  of  thousands  which  are  scattered  throughout  the  country. 
Closely  adjoining  it  is  the  house  of  the  schoolmaster  and  the  school- 
mistress, both  of  them  duly  certificated  teachers,  who  are  in  receipt 
of  £200  and  £150  a  year  respectively,*  The  bell  is  ringing,  and  the 
children  are  swarming  into  the  class-rooms.     Perhaps,  as  you  enter 

*  These  figures  must  be  accepted  as  provisional,  though,  approximately  cor- 
rect. A  return  is  being  prepared,  while  these  pages  are  going  through  the 
press,  -which  will  show  exactly  what  the  average  salary  is.  It  should  further 
be  noted  that  in  London  the  teachers  have  not  houses  provided  for  them,  which 
will  explain  why  in  the  capital  the  salaries  paid  are  higher  than  elsewhere. 


EDUCATIONAL    ENGLAND.  279 

the  great  central  chamber  of  the  structure,  you  will  meet  one  or  bwo 
ministers  of  different  denominations,  who  have  been  giving,  in  the 

half-hour  immediately  before  the  school-work  of  the  daj  It. •ins, 
religious  instruction  to  the  sons  and  daughters  of  parents  who 

creeds  they  respectively  represent.*     There  is  a  clattering  esks 

thrown  open,  of  slates  thrown  down,  and  all  the  noise  attendant 
upon  two  or  three  hundred  boys  and  girls — the  latter  being  in  an- 
other but  contiguous  part  of  the  building — settling  down  into  their 
places.  The  children  of  both  sexes  are  clean  and  well-clad,  to  a  de- 
gree that  is  really  surprising,  when  it  is  remembered  that  with 
scarcely  an  exception  then-  lathers  are  mechanics  or  artisans,  if 
much  in  this  respect  is  due  to  the  care  and  attention  of  their  par- 
ents, something  also  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  supervision  exercised 
by  the  teacher.  The  schoolmaster  who  has  the  art  of  management 
will  very  soon  create  amongst  his  scholars  a  feeling  favorable  to  de- 
cency and  cleanliness,  and  you  may  know  a  really  well  from  a  badly 
administered  school,  not  only  by  the  results  of  the  examination,  but 
by  the  general  appearance  and  manners  of  the  children. 

Lessons  proceed  according  to  the  plan  indicated  on  the  tune- 
table — a  complete  programme  of  the  educational  arrangements  for 
the  classes,  which  are  both  numbered  and  regulated  according  to 
the  standard  in  which  they  are  taught — displayed  in  a  conspicuous 
position,  and  approved  of  by  the  Education  Department  in  London, 
and  by  the  district  inspector.  Possibly  before  tho  morning  is  over, 
this  official  will  pay  one  of  his  visits  without  notice.  His  object  is 
to  see  that  the  prescribed  regulations  are  being  duly  carried  out, 
that  the  principle  upon  which  both  boys  and  girls  are  being  taught 
is  sound,  and  that  discipline  is  efficiently  kept.  He  will  perhaps 
test  the  general  intelligence  of  the  children  by  asking  them  qp 
tions,  not  immediately  out  of  their  books,  but  rather  suggested  by 
the  subjects  of  study,  and,  pointing  to  the  colored  maps,  diagrams, 
and  illustrations  of  animals  and  natural  phenomena,  which  hang 
upon  the  walls,  will  endeavor  to  ascertain  how  far  an  acquaintance 
with  words  implies  any  corresponding  appreciation  of  facts.  It  is 
by  this  kind  of  test  that  he  will  judge  the  quality  of  what  are  known 
in  our  elementary  schools  as  "object  lessons."  Here  it  is  but  too 
likely  that  he  wiil  discover  that  it  is  not  so  much  ideas  which  have 
been  acquired  as  names  which  have  been  mechanically  learnt  The 
boys  and  girls,  from  frequent  hearing  of  the  stereotyped  explana- 
tory phrases  and  formulae  of  the  pupil  teacher,  can  give  ft  oonven- 

*  In  London,  and  in  some  other  places,  this  religiotifl  teaching  may  be,  and 
usually  is,  given  by  the  "  responsible  teacher "  of  the  school. 


280  ENGLAND. 

tional  description  of  certain  objects  or  animals,  but  only  in  such  a 
way  as  shows  that  these  animals  or  objects  are  regarded  less  as 
existences  in  nature  than  as  scholastic  abstractions.  It  may  be  that 
the  inspector,  himself  constructing  a  verbal  picture  of  some  beast 
of  the  field,  bud  of  the  air,  or  product  of  the  soil,  elicits  from  the 
child  the  information  that  it  applies  to  some  entirely  different  species 
of  animals  or  phenomena.  Of  a  want  of  glib  familiarity  with  words 
the  school  inspector  has  no  reason  to  complain;  it  is  the  rational 
assimilation  of  the  knowledge  conveyed  by  text-boohs  that  he  too 
often  discovers  to  be  entirely  wanting.  Nor  are  the  text-books 
themselves  uniformly  satisfactory.  In  the  case  of  reading  manuals 
the  letter-press  often  consists  of  silly  or  extravagant  stories,  instead 
of  enshrining,  as  it  might  do,  the  narrative  of  events  of  real  interest 
and  importance.  The  key-note  of  the  complaint  made  by  the  school 
inspectors  in  their  periodical  reports  is  a  general  want  of  intelligence 
pervading  the  whole  system — want  of  intelligence  on  the  part  of  the 
scholars,  want  of  intelligence  in  the  application  of  the  instruments 
of  teaching. 

It  is  plain  from  these  official  documents  that  both  as  to  the  regu- 
lation of  the  subjects  taught,  and  the  manner  in  which  the  teaching 
is  given,  much  remains  to  be  done.  In  addition  to  the  elementary 
subjects,  grammar,  geography,  history,  literature,  physiology,  bot- 
any, Euclid,  algebra,  domestic  economy,  French,  German,  and  Latin 
are  offered  for  examination  by  a  growing  percentage  of  children. 
There  seems  to  be  a  great  danger  of  too  many  subjects  being  at- 
tempted. Subjects,  good  in  themselves,  are  ill-advisedly  chosen  for 
the  children.  Thus,  we  are  in  one  instance  told,  "  none  of  those 
presented  in  physical  geography  passed,  and  out  of  thirty  presented 
in  physiology  only  two  were  able  to  give  intelligent  answers  to  the 
questions  asked,  and  the  rest  was  mere  cram."  Again,  "  grammar 
and  geography  were  fair;  history  very  poor  indeed."  History,  ap- 
parently, is  not  a  popular  subject.  "  The  quality  of  the  geography 
is  not  good;  the  definitions  are  well  enough  known  by  heart,  but 
there  is  not  the  slightest  idea  of  applying  the  knowledge."  "A  class 
will  give  the  Jordan  as  an  example  of  a  river,  but  will  look  doubtful 
if  the  Thames  is  suggested."  "Grammar  is  more  successfully  taught 
than  geography.  Reading  is  a  mere  mechanical  exercise,  and  as 
such  is  fair,  but  intelligence  and  expression  are  wanting.  Writing 
still  needs  improvement.  The  spelling  is  fair,  but  punctuation  is 
scarcely  attended  to.  ComjDosition  is  unsatisfactoiy.  Arithmetic  is 
good  so  far  as  the  lower  standards  are  concerned,  but  the  tables  of 
weights  and  measure  are  imperfectly  known.     Needlework  is  fairly 


EDUCATIONAL    ENGLAND.  2S1 

taught  in  most  schools,  and  very  well  in  a  few."     Again,  "  ' 
economy— a  subject  of  equally  imperative  importance  as  the  fore- 
going— is  in  a  very  unsatisfactory  condition." 

This  deficiency  suggests  some  very  obvious  but  very  important 
considerations.  The  great  failing  of  the  English  working  classes  is 
their  disregard  of  the  economies  of  life.  The  great  cause  of  their 
wastefulness  is  their  ignorance.  Instances  are  not  unknown  in 
which  a  laborer's  wife  has  been  seen  to  throw  a  piece  of  unit  [on, 
sufficiently  good  for  human  consumption,  to  the  cat,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  she  did  not  know  how  to  cook  it.  Again,  the  only  way 
of  reconciling  parents  to  the  loss  of  the  money  value  of  their  chil- 
dren's  labor  is  by  appealing  to  the  unselfish  against  the  selfish  prin- 
ciple, and  convincing  them,  if  possible,  that  while  they  are  poorer  by 
their  children's  school  attendance,  their  children  will  in  the  end  be 
richer.  But  in  agricultural  districts  there  is  little  in  the  instruction 
given  in  elementally  schools  to  make  the  parents  feel  that  their  chil- 
dren are  likely  to  be  gainers  by  school  attendance.  They  may  admit 
the  necessity  of  reading  and  writing,  but  they  will  contend  that  much 
else  is  taught  which  is  superfluous.  It  may  be  allowed  that  there  is 
something  in  this.  To  gain  the  parliamentary  grant  is  naturally  a 
paramount  object  with  the  teacher,  and  that  is  only  to  be  done  1  <y 
educating  the  children  up  to  the  point  and  in  the  subjects  prescrib  1 1 
by  the  Education  Department.  The  teaching  thus  lacks  too  often  any 
direct  reference  to  the  occupations  in  which  the  children  will  engage 
after  they  leave  school;  it  is  not,  in  other  words,  calculated  to  give 
them  a  greater  interest  in  their  work,  and,  therefore,  to  make  them 
better  wrorkmen.* 

So  far  as  statistics  prove  any  thing,  they  show  a  considerable 
diminution  of  crime  since  efforts  have  first  been  made  systematically 
to  educate  the  people,  not  only  in  schools,  but  in  the  graces  and  vir- 
tues of  gentleness  and  humanity.     In  the  interval  between  1805  and 

*  The  importance  of  this  kind  of  technical  and  industrial  education  was  em- 
phatically insisted  on  not  long  ago  by  a  member  of  the  Gloucestershire  Chan 
of  Agriculture,  Captain  de  Winton,  who  said  that  he  "should  lii       i         Ln  con- 
nection with  day  school  an  industrial  room,  furnished  with  models  illu 
the  best  mode  of  laying  a  hedge,  thatching  a  cottage,  building  a  rick,  eta,  as 
well  as  of  the  more  complex  agricultural  implements,  and  he  would  have  the 
boys  taught  to  answer  such  questions  as  'How  would  you  clean  out  that  ditch?1 
'How  would  you  lay  that  hedge?'  'How  would  you  thatch  "that  rick?'   How 
would  you  plow?'  and  so  forth.     He  thought  that  then,  when  tli    1.1  went  into 
the  field,  the  practical  work  would  come  easy  to  him."    The  difficulty,  it  is  said, 
would  be  when  you  had  built  your  industrial  room  and  fitted  it  up  with  mod 
to  get  a  teacher  capable  of  Ubing  and  explaining  them. 


/ 


282  ENGLAND. 

1841  the  population  grew  at  the  rate  of  79  per  cent.,  and  the  increase 
of  criminals  had  been  sixfold  greater,  namely,  482  per  cent.  Con- 
trast with  the  thirty  odd  years  included  in  the  foregoing  estimate 
the  interval,  first,  between  1842  and  1855;  secondly,  between  1855 
and  1875.  During  the  former  of  these  periods  the  population  in- 
creased by  2,500,000,  but  there  was  no  increase  of  crime;  during  the 
latter,  the  growth  of  the  population  was  4,475,000,  while  the  de- 
crease in  committals  was  2,298,  in  convictions  2,074,  in  sentences  of 
imprisonment  1,140,  in  sentences  of  penal  servitude  935.  The  con- 
trast may  be  made  clearer  still  by  taking  the  two  years  1843  and 

1873.  Between  these  dates  there  was  an  increase  in  the  popula- 
tion at  the  rate  of  41.48  per  cent.,  while  the  most  serious  offenses 
short  of  murder  had  decreased  by  66.73  per  cent.  These,  it  must 
be  remembered — from  1843  to  1873 — are  the  three  decades  which 
coincide  with  a  marked  development  of  the  means  of  moral  training 
and  healthy  recreation  for  the  masses — churches,  public  libraries, 
playgrounds,  parks,  schools.*  The  connection  between  crime  and 
ignorance  is  disputed,  and  it  has  been  remarked  that  the  smallest 
amount  of  crime  was  often  found  in  two  districts  in  which  there 
was  most  ignorance — Lancashire  and  Wales.  The  answer  is  this: 
Wales  is  innocent  not  because  it  is  ignorant,  but  because  it  enjoys 
other  conditions  which  are  favorable  to  immunity  from  crime,  viz.,  a 
sparse  population,  infrequency  of  towns  of  great  size,  little  accumu- 
lation of  unprotected  property.  When  these  conditions  are  want- 
ing, the  immunity  of  Wales  from  crime  disappears;  viz.,  Glamorgan- 
shire, with  some  considerable  towns,  and  a  population  of  400,000, 
produces  crime  nearly  equal  to  the  rest  of  Wales,  with  a  population 
of  800,000.  On  the  other  hand,  statistics  show  that  in  Lancashire, 
in  a  given  year,  an  indictable  offense  was  committed  by  1  out  of 
every  251  of  the  population,  while  in  Cardiganshire  the  proportion 
was  1  in  every  3,338,  and  both  populations  were  equally  ignorant. 
Ap-ain,  it  has  been  ascertained  that  from  1836  to  1848,  out  of  335,429 
persons  committed,  304,772,  or  more  than  90  in  100,  were  wholly  il- 
literate, and  that  about  9  per  cent,  could  read  and  write  well.     In 

1874,  out  of  157,780  persons  committed,  95.8  per  cent,  were  unin- 
structed,  and  3.7  per  cent,  could  read  and  write  well.  Hence  it  is  a 
legitimate  inference,  that  while  education  has  progressed  since  1848, 

*  For  the  facta»and  figures  in  the  above  estimate,  as  also  for  those  which  fol- 
low on  the  connection  between  population  and  crime  in  England  and  Wales, 
and  the  relative  size  of  the  Welsh  counties,  see  Lord  Aberdare's  opening  ad- 
dress at  the  Brighton  meeting  of  the  National  Association  for  the  Promotion  of 
Social  Science,  1875,  pp.  7,  8,  9,  10,  35,  36. 


EDUCATIONAL    ENGLAND.  288 

the  criminal  class  fa  at  present  more  profoundly   ignorant  than  it 

was. 

That  the  new  educational  machinery  works  perfi  ctly,  or  thai  the 

■  principles  on  which  the  attempt  to  work  it  is  made  arc  uniformly 
sound,  would  be  too  much  to  assert.  We  have  seen  that  in  prim 
schools  there  is  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  teachers  i<>  pay  attention 
rather  to  the  subject  taught  than  to  the  manner  in  which  it  is  taught, 
or  to  the  influence  which  the  teaching  of  it  is  calculated  to  havi  upon 
the  mind.  The  latest  official  report  tells  us  of  "the  larj  i  number  of 
children  who  are  not  known  to  be  attending  school,"  of  the  "small 
number,  even  of  those  who  do  attend  school,  who  do  so  with  any 
thing  approaching  regularity;  of  the  large  proportion  of  these  last 
who  are  not  presented  to  the  inspector  to  give  proof  of  the  results 
of  their  instruction,  and  the  meager  nature  of  the  results  attained 
by  many  of  those  who  are  examined."  Again  we  read,  "out  of 
1,335,118  scholars  examined,  as  many  as  655,435,  being  over  ten 
years  of  age,  ought  to  have  been  presented  in  Standards  IV. — VI. 
Only  261,800  were  so  presented,  while  390,575  were  presented  in 
standards  suited  for  children  of  seven,  eight,  and  nine  years  of  a 

Apparently  we  have  not  in  this  matter  quite  decided  what  we 
want  and  ought  to  do.  Are  we  prepared  to  institute  a  vast  system 
of  free  education  in  England;  which  would  mean  an  immense;  addi- 

'  tion  to  the  rates.  In  1878  the  State  paid  £11,000  for  giants  to 
elementary  schools  in  aid  of  extra  subjects,  such  as  French,  ( r<  rman, 
Latin,  physical  science.  What  has  been  said  above,  as  to  the  expe- 
diency of  teaching  children  in  agricultural  districts,  that  is  likely 
to  benefit  them  when  they  are  apprenticed  to  their  work,  certainly 
applies  here;  and  if  these  extra  subjects  are  to  be  maintained,  they 
should  be  as  much  as  possible  industrial.  The  financial  pace  at 
which  we  are  proceeding  is  of  a  rapidity  that  may  alarm  Borne  peo- 
ple. In  1839  the  first  grant  ever  made  for  education  was  £20,000, 
the  estimate  for  1879  was  two  millions  and  a  half.  But  while  the 
expenditure  has  increased  at  the  rate  of  107  per  cent.,  the  school 
attendance  has  only  increased  at  the  rate  of  80  per  cent.     There  lias 

1  been  a  like  advance  in  the  cost  of  education.  Ten  years  ago  it  was 
estimated  that  80s.  was  the  annual  expenditure  of  each  child  in  an 
elementary  school.  Now,  in  Board  Schools,  it  cannot  be  put  at  a 
lower  total  than  £2.  "The  School  Board,"  said  the  Vice-President 
of  the  Council  in  the  House  of '  Commons,  in  Au:  78,  "spend 

now  three  and  two-thirds  times  as  much  from  the  rates  as  the}  get 
for  the  grants.     If  they  had  the  whole  of  the  grant  they  would  b 
levying  £6,750,000  in  rates  alone."     Without  going  into  the  d 


284  ENGLAND. 

as  to  whether  this  increased  expenditure  is  the  result  of  the  ascend- 
ency which  Board  Schools  are  acquiring  over  voluntary  schools,  it 
is  the  fact  that  the  education  rate  in  London  has  doubled  in  three 
years — was  3d.  in  1876,  and  in  1879  is  6dL* 

What  becomes  of  the  boys  and  girls  after  their  four  years'  train- 
ing in  one  of  the  elementary  schools  of  the<  country — whether  a 
Board  or  a  voluntary  school — that  is,  at  and  after  the  age  of  four- 
'  teen?  The  vast  majority  of  both  sexes  proceed  to  get  their  living 
as  best  the}'  can,  the  girls  procure  domestic  employment,  the  boys 
are  apprenticed  to  manufacturers  or  tradesmen.  But  as  amongst 
the  girls  there  is  a  small  percentage  who  become  pupil  teachers, 
and  who  subsequently  go  to  training  colleges,  so  amongst  the  boys 
may  there  be  one  or  two  who  are  destined  to  rise  by  then-  abilities 
and  industry  above  the  position  to  which  they  were  born.  Here, 
no  doubt,  there  yet  remains  a  great  work  to  do.  In  some  primary 
schools  scholarships  have  been  founded  by  private  benevolence,  as 
well  as  by  the  munificence  of  the  great  City  companies,  who,  it 
should  be  noted,  are  also  doing  much  to  assist  the  development 
of  technical  and  industrial  teaching.  These  prizes  are  competed 
for  annually,  and  they  enable  successful  candidates  to  pass  on  to 
secondary  schools  and  complete  or  mature  their  education.  In  a 
few  towns,  such  as  Bedford,  there  is  a  graduated  system  of  schools, 
and  a  boy  may  naturally  pass  from  the  lowest  class  in  the  school 
which  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  scale,  to  the  highest  in  that  which  is 
at  the  top,  and  whence  he  may  proceed  to  the  university,  with  more 
of  the  educational  advantages  and  many  of  the  social  which  he  would 
have  enjoyed  at  Eton,  after  an  expenditure  by  his  parents  of  £1,500. 
In  most  towns,  and  in  many  places  which  are  little  more  than 
villages,  there  are  endowed  schools,  grammar  schools,  and  others  of 
different  grades,  and  if  the  pupil  can  afford  to  spend  further  time 
upon  the  business  of  education,  he  will  be  able  to  procure  admis- 
sion to  one  of  these.  The  third  grade  of  endowed  schools  is  on  a 
level  with  elementary  schools  of  the  country;  in  the  second  grade 
boys  learn  Latin  as  well  as  elementary  Greek,  remaining  at  them  till 
about  the  age  of  sixteen.  In  schools  of  the  first  grade  boys  receive 
the  highest  liberal  training  known  in  England,  and  remain  till  eight- 

*  This  increase,  however,  is  not  due  to  the  increased  cost  per  head,  which, 
in  point  of  fact,  so  far  as  it  falls  upon  the  rates,  has,  on  the  whole,  slightly 
decreased,  but  to  the  circumstance  that  a  far  larger  number  of  children  are  on 
the  roll  and  in  regular  attendance.  It  is  as  well  to  state  that  in  the  last  eight 
years  the  roll  of  London  has  doubled,  and  the  average  attendance  more  than 
doubled,  the  greater  part  of  this  increase  being  due  to  the  action  of  the  BoarJ. 


EDUCA  TIOX.  I L    ENGLA  ND.  J   9 

een  or  nineteen.  Each  of  the  institutions  which  these  classes  com- 
prise is  now  as  genuinely  national  as  the  Board  School  its.lt'.  it  is, 
however,  only  in  the  last  few  years  that  they  have  acquired  this 
character.  Before  the  time  of  the  Endowed  Schools'  Commission 
and  the  legislation  which  followed  it,  in  1869  and  L873,  these  insti- 
tutions did  exceedingly  little  work,  and  the  endowments  were  gen- 
erally monopolized  by  members  of  the  Church  of  England  The 
effect  of  the  new  legislation  was  to  make  them  independent  of  relig- 
ious beliefs,  both  as  regards  the  benefits  of  their  endowments  and 
the  api3ointment  of  their  teachers,  wherever  the  original  Btatutes  of 
the  founders  did  not  specifically  prohibit  such  a  change.  In  addi- 
tion to  this,  provision  was  made  for  the  teaching  of  natural  sciences 
and  modern  languages.  The  reorganization  of  these  schools  by  the 
Government,  with  the  new  schemes  of  teaching  in  them  drawn  up, 
have  resulted  in  an  educational  revolution,  second  only  to  that  rep- 
resented by  the  Elementary  Education  Act  of  1870,  and  have  pro- 
vided such  connecting  links  as  can  be  said  to  exist  between  the  rudi- 
mentary schools  of  the  country  and  its  highest  academic  training. 
What  the  Government  did  for  those  institutions,  specifically  knows 
as  endowed  schools  by  Act  of  Parliament,  it  did  also  for  what  are 
called,  by  way  of  distinction,  public  schools.  A  special  commission 
appointed  in  1861,  inquired  into  the  nine  large  endowed  schools  of 
Eton,  Winchester,  Westminster,  Charterhouse,  St.  Paul's,  Merchant 
Tailors',  Harrow,  Rugby,  and  Shrewsbury.  It  is  to  these  that  the 
Public  Schools'  Act  have  exclusive  reference,  while  the  great  multi- 
tude of  the  remainder — upwards  of  a  thousand  institutions  in  all — 
is  provided  for  by  the  Endowed  Schools'  Acts,  based  upon  the  re- 
ports of  different  commissions  of  inquiry.  Both  in  the  case  of  the 
nine  schools  specially  mentioned,  and  of  the  remainder,  governing 
bodies  were  appointed,  in  which  the  masters  and  pupils,  as  well  as 
the  great  body  of  the  parents,  the  universities,  and  the  learned  soci- 
eties were  represented.  In  all  cases,  an  under-master  has,  in  the 
case  of  any  dispute  with  the  head-master,  the  right  of  appeal  to 
the  governing  body.  The  governing  bodies  had  also  the  power  to 
alter  the  qualifications  of  age  and  knowledge  required  of  a  pu] 
entering  the  school,  to  award  scholarships  and  exhibitions  as  ; 
result  of  competitive  examinations,  to  provide  for  exemption  from 
religious  instruction,  and  to  abolish  a  clerical  qualification  as  com- 
pulsory upon  head-masters  and  under-masters.  The  new  relations 
which  were  thus  established  between  govt  ruing  bodies,  head-mas- 
ters, and  their  subordinates,  did  not  at  lirsi  work  uniformly  W( 
the  transition  from  the  old  regime  to  the  new  was  attended  bj  I  luoh 


286  ENGLAND. 

friction  and  by  some  collisions;  there  were  troubles  at  Rugby,  there 
were  differences  which  did  not  become  quite  so  famous  at  Eton. 
Happily  these  things  now  seem  to  belong  to  past  history;  the 
schools  are  doing  their  work  fairly,  and  the  masters,  pupils,  and 
parents  are  settling  down  to  the  changed  conditions. 

The  great  public  schools  have  felt  the  upward  educational  move- 
ment of  the  time,  just  as  they  have  admitted,  in  the  rearrangement 
of  their  governing  bodies,  the  supremacy  of  the  State.  In  the  last 
thirty  years  there  have  sprung  up  throughout  the  country  a  host  of 
new  claimants  for  the  honors  and  prestige  which  the  nine  public 
schools  vised  to  divide  between  them.  Marlborough,  Cheltenham, 
Leamington,  Brighton,  Bath,  Malvern,  and  Clifton,  have  each  of 
them  become  the  centers  of  teaching  which  gives  them  a  claim  to 
be  practically  considered  upon  the  public  school  level.  These  new 
seats  of  learning  owe  their  rise  partly  to  the  immense  development 
of  the  middle  class,  which  has  been  witnessed  in  the  last  few  years, 
partly  to  the  extension  of  the  competitive  examination  system.  It 
is  this  competition  which  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  efforts  at 
reform  made  by  the  authorities  of  our  older  public  schools,  and  with 
the  attention  given  to  mathematics,  modern  languages,  and  physical 
science. 

For  some  years  after  the  institution  of  army  entrance  examina- 
tions and  the  application  of  the  competitive  system,  either  in  a  free 
and  unrestricted  or  else  modified  form,  to  the  Civil  Service,  both  in 
India  and  at  home,  the  entire  work  of  the  preparation  of  candidates 
.  for  these  ordeals  was  in  the  hands  of  private  tutors,  better  known 
by  the  generic  term  of  "crammers."  A  "modern  side"  had  indeed 
been  instituted  in  which  special  care  was  given  to  modern  languages, 
mathematics,  and  physical  science;  but  the  work  in  these  depart- 
ments was  generally  done  in  a  perfunctory  manner,  and  the  exj>eri- 
ment  during  its  earlier  stages  was  only  partially  successful.  The 
crammer  was  the  recognized  and  necessary  supplement  to  the  school- 
master. Boys  who  were  destined  for  the  army  were  systematically 
idle  at  school,  because  they  knew,  or  confidently  hoped,  that  they 
wotdd  be  able  to  make  up  for  their  idleness  by  six  months'  or  a 
year's  work  under  the  crammer's  auspices.  The  tendency  of  this 
state  of  things  was  to  establish  a  most  undesirable  divorce  between 
the  public  schools  and  the  public  service;  the  effects  of  this  divorce 
still  remain,  though  in  one  or  two  ways  the  attempt  has  been  made 
to  remove  them,  and  to  increase  the  inducements  for  lads  to  no  to 
the  universities,  after  leaving  school,  instead  of  to  the  crammers. 
Thus  at  the  present  day,  special  privileges  are  offered  to  candidates 


EDUCATIONAL    ENGLAND.  287 

for  the  Indian  Civil  Service  who  may  have  gone  to  Oxford  or  C  tm- 

bridge,  and  a  certain  number  of  commissions  in  the  army  arc  annu- 
ally reserved  for  undergraduates  at  these  universities.     A   i  ir 
regards  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  the  reduction  in  the  standard  for 
the  age  of  entrance  was  intended  to  have  the  eff<  d  of  bringing  up 

candidates  straight  from  school.     Most  of  the  -real  schools 
country  have  readily  and  effectually  availed  themselves  of  the  oppor- 
tunity thus  offered,  and  special  classes  for  the  benefit  of  candid 
for  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  and  since  the  English  Civil  S 
been  reorganized,  and  its  most  remunerative  positions  thrown  open 
to  competitions,  for  that  also,  have  been  set  on  foot.     But  as  yet 
there  is  nothing  to  make  one  think  that  the  crammer's  occupation  is 
likely  to  disappear  altogether.     The  spirit  of  the  age  is  favorable  to 
specialists  and  experts,  and  the  crammer  is  simply  an  educational 
practitioner,  who  has  made  certain  examinational  requirements 
particular  study,  just  as  the  medical  specialist  has  concentrated  his 
thoughts  and  experiences  upon  a  single  branch  of  disease. 

The  fact,  however,  remains,  that  much  has  been  done  tows 
bringing  the  curriculum  of  the  great  schools  of  England  into  h 
mony  with  the  requirements  of  special  public   examinations  insti- 
tuted by  the  State.     It  is  an  attempt  at  organization,  the  sir 
which  we  cannot  expect  suddenly  to  witness,  an  honest  effort  to 
provide  that  valuable  and  important  machinery  of  which  be: 
•had  nothing.     In  other  respects,  too,  there  may  be  seen  signs  of  the 
endeavor  to  secure   something   like  uniformity  in  our   system   of 
higher  education.     The  two  universities  have  instituted  an  exam- 
ining board  which,   on  payment  of  a  comparatively  small  fee,  is 
willing  to  test  annually  the  proficiency  of  the  pupils  of  every  school 
that  cares  to  enter  into  an  arrangement  with  it.     Success  in  this 
examination  is  accepted  by  the  authorities  of  Oxford  in  lieu  of  pi 
ing  the  little-go  examination.     But  so  far  as  the  universities  are 
concerned,  this  is  only  one  of  many  proofs  which  they  now  afford 
of  then*  anxiety  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  altered  conditions  of 
the  times.     Nor  are  the  colleges  idle ;  they  are  altering  their  stat- 
utes in  the  direction  which  the  commissioners  may  probal 
mend,   are  endowing  new  professorships  out  of  their  fund 
have,  in  some  cases,  abolished  clerical  restrictions  in  the  case  of 
their  headships.     Already,  too,  they  have  done  more  than  this.      In 
1858,  local  middle-class  examinations  were  established,  conduct     I 
by  members  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,   and 
passed  in  them  to  the  degree  of  Associate  of  A  ben 

several  colleges,  both  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  have  given  Bohol- 


288  ENGLAND. 

arships  and  exhibitions  to  the  most  distinguished  of  the  successful 
candidates  in  these  provincial  ordeals,  as  an  inducement  for  them 
to  go  to  the  university  and  reside.  Ten  years  later,  the  scheme  of 
unattached  students  was  adopted,  and  young  men  were  henceforth 
enabled  to  enrol  themselves  members  of  the  university  without  being 
members  of  colleges.  The  scheme  was  recommended  on  its  earliest 
introduction  by  motives  of  economy,  and  has  since  proved  wonder- 
fully successful  in  practice.  The  colleges  themselves  have  done 
much  to  help  this  attempt;  they  have,  in  many  instances,  opened 
their  lectures  to  unattached  students,  and  they  have  been  fre- 
quently willing  to  receive  such  members  of  this  body  as  cared  to 
enrol  themselves  upon  their  books  on  exceptionally  favorable  terms. 
As  the  universities  have  done  much  to  adapt  their  distinctions  to 
the  necessities  of  practical  life  by  founding  new  examination  schools 
in  such  subjects  as  modern  history  and  law,  physical  science  and 
theology,  so  the  colleges  have  increased  their  educational  efficiency 
by  combining  their  tutorial  staff  for  collective  instruction. 

Far  outside  their  own  geographical  limits,  from  one  end  of  Great 
Britain  to  the  other,  Oxford  and  Cambridge  are  doing  a  great 
educational  work.  The  university  extension  movement  is  gaining 
ground  daily.  As  by  the  middle-class  examinations,  bo}Ts  who  had 
not  the  chance  of  going  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge  had  it  placed 
within  their  power  to  gain  a  certificate  of  academic  excellence,  so 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  have  brought  their  harmonizing  influences 
within  the  reach  of  those  whose  school-days  have  come  to  a  prema- 
ture close.  In  almost  every  great  town  of  England  there  are  lec- 
tures given  periodically  by  Oxford  and  Cambridge  graduates  of  high 
standing,  not  merely  in  Latin  and  Greek,  history,  philosophy,  and 
literature,  but  in  political  economy,  and  the  various  branches  of 
physical  science.  The  course  of  lectures  on  these  subjects  are  fol- 
lowed by  examinations;  nor  is  it  unknown  to  find  a  Sheffield  or 
Birmingham  artisan,  clad  in  his  working  dress,  who  has  gained  an 
Oxford  or  Cambridge  diploma  in  political  economy. 

In  the  new  relations  established  between  English  schools  and 
universities  by  means  of  the  examining  board,  of  which  mention  has 
already  been  made,  indications  of  an  effort  may  be  observed  on  the 
part  of  schoolmasters — for  it  was  to  the  schoolmasters  as  much  as  to 
the  university  authorities  that  the  new  scheme  was  first  due — to  se- 
cure for  themselves  a  better  defined  position.  There  are,  indeed, 
two  features  especially  prominent  in  the  relations  which  have  been 
developed  during  the  last  few  years  in  schoolmasters  as  a  body  on 
the  one  hand,  and  in  schools  in  their  relation  to  the  universities  on 


EDUCATIONAL    ENGLAND.  289 

the  other.     The  schools  have  been  increasingly  putting  then 
into  a  sort  of  clientship  to  a  university;  schoolmasters  have  more 
and  more  been  organizing-  themselves  with  a  view  of  attaining  some- 
thing like  uniformity  in  their  educational  systems,  and  the  power  of 

making  their  voice  heard  in  scholastic  matters  generally.  The  peri- 
odical conferences  of  head-masters  have  been  one  important  step  in 
this  direction.  These  meetings  are  now  about  ten  years  old,  and 
in  the  last  two  or  three  years  assistant  masters  have  been  admitted 
to  them.  Further  progress  along  the  same  line  is  in  contemplation, 
and  there  is  an  idea  of  holding  educational  congresses,  open  to  all 
teachers  and  examiners  of  first  and  second  grade  schools,  and  to 
all  professors  and  teachers  at  the  universities.  Much  work  has  also 
been  done  by  the  College  of  Preceptors — an  association  whose  ob- 

i  ject  it  is  to  improve  the  quality  of  teachers,  principally  in  middle- 
class  schools,  which  grants  diplomas  to  schoolmasters  who  have  not 
been  at  universities,  and  who  are  especially  examined  by  the  college 
on  the  theory  and  practice  of  education.  It  also  gives  certificates  to 
schoolmistresses.  These  examinations  have  been  held  half-yearly 
since  1S54,  and  between  two  and  three  thousand  teachers  of  both 
classes  are  annually  examined.  Delegates  of  its  bodies  also  examine 
entire  schools.  The  special  feature  of  the  body,  however,  is  that  it 
exists  for  the  benefit  and  instruction  of  the  teachers  themselves. 
Education  is  studied,  and  lectures  are  given  on  education  as  a 
science  and  an  art.  For  a  long  time  the  college  has  been  en- 
deavoring to  obtain  registration  by  the  Government  for  teachers 
in  public  and  private  schools.  This  would  virtually  amount  to  a 
legal  enactment  that  no  person  shovdd  be  accepted  as  a  teacher 

i   who  does  not  possess  a  certificate  from  some  recognized  board  of 
examiners. 

On  all  sides  the  complaint  is  made  that  our  supply  of  middle-class 
secondary  schools  is  defective  alike  in  quantity  and  quality.  One 
remedy  is  that  suggested  by  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  an  organized  sys- 
tem of  State  inspection  such  as  now  exists  in  our  primary  schools, 
and,  bv  means  of  the  new  universitv  examinations,  in  some  of  our 
public  schools  as  well.  To  hope  that  this  will  cure  the  evil  is  per- 
haps to  expect  too  much  from  the  machinery  of  inspection.  No 
doubt  the  state  of  things  recorded  by  the  reports  of  local  delegate  s 
of  the  University  of  Oxford,  as  existing  in  our  grammar  schools  and 
others  is  sufficiently  unsatisfactory.  "The  results  of  these  matricu- 
lation examinations,"  write  the  delegates,  "prove  that  the  educati'>n 
of  boys  is  very  inefficient  in  English  schools;  that  their  ignorance  is 
by  no  means  confined  to  classical  subjects,  but  is  equally  marked  in 
19 


290  ENGLAND. 

mathematics."  Hence  the  inference  is  that  there  is  need  of  a  supe- 
rior authority  to  interfere  on  the  behalf  of  the  middle-class  parents 
of  England,  and  that  this  can  only  be  done  by  a  Minister  of  Educa- 
tion sending  his  inspectors  to  see  how  the  work  of  education  is  car- 
ried on,  not  only  in  the  case  of  the  clever  boys  who  get  to  the  top 
of  the  school,  but  of  the  many  who  are  allowed  to  drop  behind  and 
to  do  no  real  work.  Let  it  be  granted  that  the  facts  are  as  the 
delegates  and  others  describe  them  to  be,  and  that  the  parents  are 
quite  right  in  attributing  them  to  the  unsatisfactory  teaching  in  the 
grammar  schools  of  the  United  Kingdom;  does  it  follow  that  the  cure 
is  fresh  legislation  and  more  school  inspection  ? 

The  report  of  the  Endowed  Schools  Commission  drew  attention 
to  many  instances  of  systematically  careless  and  imperfect  teaching 
in  secondary  middle-class  schools.  The  public  did  not,  however, 
require  to  master  the  contents  of  all  these  volumes  to  know  that 
some  of  those  who  had  embraced  the  profession  of  education  had  no 
educating  zeal,  taste,  or  capacity.  Sometimes  the  pedagogue  was  a 
highly  agreeable  specimen  of  the  English  clergyman  and  gentleman 
fond  of  society,  fond  of  shooting,  a  capital  conversationalist,  perhaps 
something  of  an  aesthetic  dilettante.  He  took  an  active  part  in  the 
local  cricket  club,  and  was  a  leading  spirit  in  a  resuscitated  toxoph- 
ilite  society.  He  was  one  of  the  most  delightful  persons  in  the 
world  to  fill  a  vacant  place  at  a  picnic  party,  and  he  had  an  abun- 
dant repertory  of  songs,  which  he  sang  with  great  feeling  and  judg- 
ment. But  in  an  evil  hour  for  himself  and  others  he  had  taken  to 
schoolmastering.  When  he  was  elected  to  his  position  by  the  gov- 
ernors—the present  governing  bodies  had  not  then  come  into  exist- 
ence— the  school  was  fairly  well-to-do.  There  were  plenty  of  day- 
boys, and  a  considerable  number  of  boarders.  Nothing  more  than 
management,  labor,  and  energy  were  wanted  to  perpetuate  its  suc- 
cess. These  were  attributes  possessed  neither  by  the  new  head- 
master nor  his  wife.  Socially,  they  were  each  of  them  great  acquisi- 
tions. Of  all  things  in  the  world  for  which  the  pair  was  least  adapted 
was  the  drudgery  or  slavery,  as  it  seemed  to  both  of  them,  of  per- 
petually having  the  responsibility  of  boys  on  their  hands.  The 
practical  result  was,  of  course,  what  might  have  been  expected.  The 
school  went  down,  the  boys  learned  nothing,  were  plucked  in  every 
examination  for  which  they  presented  themselves,  and  finally  the 
head-master  himself  considered  it  advisable  to  accept  a  small  living. 

Provincial  England  at  one  time  abounded  in  such  experiences  as 
these.  Frequently  the  schoolmaster  was  something  more  than  a 
man  of  pleasure — was  really  a  scholar,  had  a  pretty  turn  for  physi- 


EDUC.  1  7V0.Y.  1 1.    ENGL .  IND.  201 

cal  science,  or   archaeology,   or  metaphysics.     The    uirimpeai 
character  of  the  pursuit  did  not,  in  practice,  much  mend  matters. 
The  boys  wove  neglected,  and  the  fame  and  fortune  of  the  set 

began  steadily  to  wane.  It  would  be  too  much  t<>  say  that  such  in- 
stances as  these  are  altogether  obsolete  at  the  present  day.  They 
are  certainly  much  less  common  than  they  were,  and  not  less  cer- 
tainly it  is  very  much  easier  than  it  was  even  a  decade  ago  for  ihe 
ordinary  parent  to  procure  a  sound  training  of  the  higher  sort  for 
his  boy.  Of  course  all  ground  for  the  complaints  of  indignant  par- 
ents is  not  removed.  The  doubt  is  whether  it  is  necessary  or  desir- 
able to  attempt  to  remove  them  by  Act  of  Parliament.  It  is,  and  it 
will  remain  to  the  end  of  the  chapter,  just  as  impossible  to  improve 
unsatisfactory  schools  and  bad  systems  of  teaching — or  systems  of 
teaching  which  are  in  reality  no  teaching  at  all — off  the  face  of  the 
earth  by  adding  to  the  arm}'  of  school  inspectors  at  present  scat- 
tered over  the  surface  of  the  United  Kingdom,  as  to  eliminate  crim- 
inal propensities  from  the  minds  of  the  lower  classes  by  Indefinitely 
reinforcing  the  ranks  of  police  superintendents.  There  are  two  real 
kinds  of  school  inspection,  the  direct  and  indirect.  The  latter  is,  or 
should  be,  quite  as  effective  as  the  former,  and  may  be  enforced  in 
all  cases  in  which  the  former  does  not  exist — that  is,  in  every  hi  I 
of  school  which  is  a  grade  or  two  removed  above  the  primary  schooL 
There  are  the  Oxford  and  Cambridge  middle-class  examinations. 
There  are  the  periodical  examinations  conducted  by  members  of  a 
regular  staff  of  Oxford  examiners,  which  secure,  as  lias  been  ex- 
plained above,  for  the  successful  candidate  immunity  from  the  or-- 
deal  of  "  Responsions  "  when  he  has  matriculated  on  the  Isis.  There 
are  innumerable  examinations  for  Civil  Service  appointments,  com- 
missions in  the  army,  Ceylon  writerships,  scholarships,  and  exhibi- 
tions at  the  different  universities  of  the  United  Kingdom.  Now, 
each  one  of  these  really  does  the  duty  of  an  indirect  school  in- 
spector, and  if  the  parent  wishes  to  have  presumptive  and,  as  he 
'may  fairly  regard  it,  almost  positive  proof  of  the  efficiency  of  any 
school,  he  has  but  to  find  out  what  its  representatives,  in  other 
words  its  pupils,  do  in  their  public  trials.  Here  are  data  on  which 
any  parent  can  base  his  judgment,  and  they  are  data  available  to  a1! 
who  care  to  have  access  to  them.  The  standard  is  one  by  which  no 
schoolmaster  will  think  it  unjust  that  the  merits  of  his  estal  Li  ihment 
should  be  gauged.  Occasionally  he  may  be  afflicted  with  an  excep- 
tionally stupid  set  of  school-boys.  But  the  doctrine  of  averages 
holds  good;  and  in  the  long  run  the  stupidity  and  cleverness  of 
school-boys  bear  the  same  mutual  proportions. 


292  ENGLAND. 

The  truth  is,  that  it  is  the  parents  themselves  who  decide  how 
much  education  is  to  be  given  to  the  boys,  and  of  what  kind.  Money 
will  do  much,  but  there  are  certain  things  which  it  is  not  to  be 
wished  that  it  should  do.  It  is  not,  for  instance,  to  be  desired  that 
the  payment  by  the  father  of  a  sum,  very  likely  a  considerable  sum, 
of  money  should  relieve  him  of  the  obligation  of  personally  judging 
what  progress  his  boy  is  making,  and  what  are  the  influences,  men- 
tal and  moral,  under  which  he  is  growing  up. 

If  subjects  taught  at  school  are  tabooed  at  home,  on  the  ground 
that  they  are  of  little  practical  utility  and  do  not  pay,  is  it  likely  that 
a  boy  will  work  hard  at  them  ?  These  are  the  questions  which  the 
suggestion  of  inspection  for  grammar  schools  very  naturally  sug- 
gests to  schoolmasters.  Says  a  schoolmaster:  "A  parent  consulting 
me  a  few  days  ago  about  his  son,  a  boy  of  some  ability,  but  very 
much  afraid  of  exertion,  concluded  by  saying,  '  I  don't  want  my  lad 
to  grow  up  a  fool;  but  I  don't  care  for  him  to  work  very  hard.  It 
is  not  necessary,  for  he  will  have  plenty  of  money.' '  Well  may  the 
schoolmaster  ask,  "  Whom  would  an  inspector  blame  for  this  boy's 
ignorance  and  backwardness?"  The  parent  above  referred  to  prob- 
ably belonged  to  that  class  of  parents  who  send  their  boys  to  school 
not  so  much  to  learn  as  to  make  acquaintances.  The  purely  social 
mission  of  school  life  is  enlarged  upon  in  the  present  day  by  parents 
before  boys  to  a  very  ill-advised  extent.  And  though  we  hear  more 
about  education  now  than  at  any  former  period  in  our  history,  it 
must  always  be  remembered  that  there  is  much  at  the  present  age 
which  is  distinctly  anti-studious.  To  play  in  the  University  Eleven, 
or  to  row  in  the  University  Eight,  carries  with  it  more  of  popu- 
lar prestige  than  to  have  won  a  first-class  and  a  Balliol  or  Trinity 
fellowship. 

The  general  principle  on  which  the  great  English  public  schools 
may  be  described  as  being  administered  is,  first,  the  recognition  and 
organization  of  the  natural  tendencies  of  boys ;  secondly,  that  of  ap- 
pealing  to  their  good  feeling  and  honor.  Each  of  these  ideas  finds 
its  expression  in  what  is  called  the  monitorial  or  the  prefectual  sys- 
tem. This  system  is  really  one  of  government  by  the  governed,  and 
as  perfected  by  Dr.  Arnold,  is  the  distinguishing  feature  of  our  pub- 
lic schools.  It  is,  we  are  told,  natural  and  inevitable  that  big  boys 
should  control  small,  and  an  organized  system  prevents  abuse  of  this 
control.  Secondly,  it  is  part  of  education  to  learn  to  rule.  Thirdly, 
it  is  a  waste  of  power  not  to  utilize  the  governing  instinct  of  senior 
boys  for  work  which  they  can  do  as  well  as,  or  better  than,  salaried 
masters.     Y\Te  thus  have  three  distinct  lines  of  discipline;  first,  that 


EDUCATIONAL    ENGLAND.  298 

of  the  head-master;  secondly,  that  of  the  assistant-masters;  thirdly, 
that  of  the  boys.  It  was  impossible  to  put  down  fagging  by  an} 
laws.  Human  nature  prompted  strong  boys  to  exercise  an  author- 
ity which  was  very  often  despotic  over  the  weak.  The  question,  ac- 
cordingly, with  which  schoolmasters  had  to  deal  presented  itself  aa 
a  problem  of  regulating  this  authority  amongst  boys  in  such  a  v 
as  to  prevent  its  degenerating  into  bullying,  and  to  establish  a  • 
compensating  principle  to  that  of  "might  is  right."  Hence  our 
schoolmasters  have  officially  recognized  fagging  by  the  one  or  two 
upper  forms  of  their  schools.  In  this  way  they  have  to  a  great  es 
tent  succeeded  in  turning  possible  and  probable  bullies  into  actui  I 
disciplinarians.  The  head-master  officially  acknowledges  the  juris- 
diction which  the  bigger  boys  have  over  the  smaller,  and  in  return 
for  this  sanction,  the  bigger  boys  are  held  by  the  head-master  re- 
sponsible for  the  moderate  exercise  of  their  powers,  and  by  way  of 
further  reciprocity,  pledge  themselves  to  promote  order  and  disci- 
pline throughout  the  school.  This  system  has  no  doubt  certain  dis- 
advantages. Boys,  it  may  be  argued,  do  not  choose  their  leaders  on 
the  same  principle  as  head-masters  choose  their  prefects:  there  is, 
thus,  a  danger  lest  the  depositary  of  the  delegated  authority  of  the 
head-master  should  not  be  coincident  with  the  wielder  of  the  actual 
authority  amongst  his  school-fellows.  Again,  it  is  contended  by  s<  ime 
critics  that  the  exclusive  concentration  of  school-boy  responsibility 
among  a  limited  number  causes  the  remainder,  who  are  the  great 
majority,  to  ignore  the  fact  that  they  have  any  responsibility  at  all. 
'  On  the  whole,  however,  fagging  and  the  monitorial  power  do  not 
'■  work  badly  at  our  public  schools.  Scandals  occasionally  there  are, 
but  the  worst  scandals  do  not  occur  in  schools  where  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  prefects  or  monitors  is  openly  recognized,  and  where 
fagging  is  most  officially  sanctioned,  but  rather  in  those  schools 
where  the  limits  within  which  the  former  is  kept  and  the  latter  is 
not  allowed  to  exceed  are  very  narrow.  At  Eton,  though  the  pre- 
fectual  system  has  not  been  nominally  adopted,  the  head  boy  of  each 
boarding-house  is  expected  to  keep  things  straight  chiefly  by  setting 
a  good  example.  Sixth-form  boys  generally  are  trusted  to  preset 
order,  and  have  the  right  to  fag.  In  almost  all  schools  where  the 
prefectual  system  does  exist  its  representatives  are  allowed  to  use 
the  cane.  At  Winchester  a  prefect  may  cane  on  his  own  responsi- 
bility, but  in  serious  cases  the  head  boy  of  the  school  is  consult'  I 
At  Harrow  no  grave  offense  is  punished,  whether  by  chastisem 
or  otherwise,  without  a  meeting  of  the  head  boys  of  the  boarding- 
house,  and  their  common  approval  of  the  steps  taken.     At  West- 


294  ENGLAND. 

minster  no  monitor  can  cane  or  punish  in  any  way,  unless  in  the 
presence  of,  and  with  the  approval  of,  the  head  boy  of  the  house,  or 
of  the  entire  school,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  offense  commit- 
ted. In  all  cases  appeal  lies  to  the  head-master;  no  monitor  may 
punish  for  an  offense  against  himself;  the  monitors,  as  a  body,  are 
formally  invested  with  power  by  the  head-master,  and  promise  in 
writing  to  act  faithfully.  At  Marlborough  there  is  also  an  appeal  to 
the  head-master;  two  prefects  must  be  present  at  a  caning,  and  the 
strokes  must  not  exceed  twelve.  At  Shrewsbury  no  caning  or  im- 
position is  given,  except  upon  the  adjudication  of  the  whole  body  of 
prefects. 

Such,  in  brief  outline,  being  the  English  pubhc  school  system, 
what  is  its  product  ?  The  first  thing  which  strikes  one  in  the  school- 
boy of  to-day  is  that  his  views  of  life  are  much  more  extensive  than 
formerly.  He  seems  to  be  much  more  in  contact  with  the  actual 
cares  and  responsibilities  of  life.  There  is  no  diminution  of  fresh- 
ness or  of  capacity  for  healthy  enjoyment,  but  he  is  manifestly  not 
without  a  sense  that  existence  has  its  business,  and  that  that  busi- 
ness he  will  sooner  or  later  be  called  on  to  discharge.  The  happy- 
go-lucky  temper,  the  vague  belief  that  all  will  come  right  in  the  end, 
is  more  or  less  superseded  by  an  intelligent  recognition  of  the  cir- 
cumstances that  how  this  may  be  very  much  depends  upon  himself. 
The  lad  begins  of  his  own  accord  to  discuss  the  possibilities  of  a 
Career,  the  chances  of  school-fellows  who  are  reading  for  examina- 
tions, or  the  merits  of  those  who  have  actually  won  appointments. 
In  all  this  one  may  witness  some  of  the  results  of  the  competitive 
system.  If  competitive  examinations  had  done  nothing  more  than 
bring  home  to  the  bosom  of  English  boys  a  sense  of  the  necesshy 
of  prolonged  individual  effort,  they  would  have  done  much.  They 
may  be  sometimes  unfair  in  their  operation;  they  may  often  fail  to 
secure  for  us  the  qualities  which  we  want;  but  they  have  at  least 
not  so  much  modified  as  revolutionized  the  school-boy's  whole  ideas 
of  life. 

There  are  many  other  agencies  tending  in  the  same  direction  at 
work  with  the  English  school-boy.  As  competitive  examinations  for 
scholarships,  Civil  Service  clerkships,  for  the  army  and  elsewhere, 
have  opened  up  to  him  a  novel  view  of  the  responsibilities  of  ex- 
istence, so  have  the  studies  which  these  examinations  involve  im- 
mensely widened  his  general  intellectual  experience.  Modern  and 
ancient  history,  English  and  French  literature — he  looks  at  these 
from  a  standpoint  to  which  he  was  once  a  stranger.  There  is,  he 
at  last  perceives,  some  practical  significance  in  them,  and  they  bear 


EDUCATIONAL    ENGLAND.  296 

a  definite,  tangible  relation  to  the  business  and  conduct  of  life.  Nor 
does  the  impulse  proceed  only  from  above.  In  man}  ways  the  mod- 
ern English  school-boy  does  a  great  deal  for  his  own  enlightenment 
Boy  politicians  and  philosophers  there  have  always  been,  luil  | 
have  been  of  the  nature  of  portents  and  prodigies.  Til]  recently 
school-boys  have  displayed,  for  the  most  part,  an  indifference  to  the 
history  of  their  own  times,  as  it  may  be  learned  from  new  papers, 
and  from  conversation.  Every  school  and  every  school  boardinjr- 
house  have  now  their  library  and  reading-room.  The  boys  them- 
selves, though  as  far  removed  from  being  prigs  as,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
young  Englishmen  will  ever  be,  have  their  miniature  Parliaments, 
and  discuss  the  affairs  of  the  day.  Their  remarks  may  not  be  very 
edifying,  but  the  very  fact  that  these  remarks  are  made,  and  such 
discussions  held,  testifies  to  an  educational  fact  of  no  small  value — 
educational,  indeed,  in  the  best  and  truest  sense  of  all,  since  the 
progress  is  the  gradual  drawing  out,  strengthening,  and  exercising 
of  faculties  which,  in  the  old  state  of  things,  were  allowed  to  rust  in 
desuetude. 

The  English  public-school  sj-steni  has  become  as  much  a  national 
institution  as  Household  Suffrage  or  Vote  by  Ballot.  That  it  is  sup- 
posed to  suit  the  English  character  may  be  inferred  from  its  adop- 
tion at  the  newer  public  schools  which  are  springing  up.  How 
strong  is  the  hold  which  universities  and  public  schools  together 
have  upon  the  English  mind,  to  what  an  extent  their  iniluences 
dominate  the  men  who  in  turn  are  intrusted  with  the  administra- 
tion of  the  country,  may  be  judged  by  the  following  estimate  : — In 
the  House  of  Commons,  elected  in  1874,  236,  or  more  than  a  third, 
,  out  of  G58  members  were  Oxford  or  Cambridge  men,  while  about 
I  180  were  public-school  men,  of  which  total  close  upon  a  hundred 
came  from  Eton,  and  rather  more  than  half  a  hundred  fr<  >m]  [arrow. 
Nor  has  female  education  in  England  among  the  middle  and  up- 
per classes  failed  to  make  a  very  perceptible  degree  of  progress  of 
late  years.  There  are  ladies'  colleges,  not  only  at  Cambridge1,  but 
in  most  of  the  large  and  fashionable  towns  of  the  United  Kingdom. 
There  is  an  elaborate  organization  of  lectures  of  all  kinds  for  f<  male 
students.  There  are  high  schools  for  girls  of  younger  age,  wl 
much  study  is  given  to  many  subjects.  But  while  in  man\  instances 
it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  young  ladies  of  the  day  are  gradually 
developing  into  intellectual  and  cidtivated  women,  we  are  i  rperi- 
encing  some  of  the  disadvantages  attendant  upon  the  era  of  reform  at 
high  pressure,  and  female  education  in  fashionable  finishing  schools 
is  often  far  too  pretentious  to  be  sound.     We  have  seen  thi 


296  ENGLAND. 

• 

school-boy,  let  us  briefly  glance  at  his  sister  the  English  school-girl, 
as  we  may  frequently  meet  her.  She  has  a  considerable  acquaint- 
ance with  text-books  and  manuals.  She  can  answer  questions  on  a 
host  of  minute  incidents  and  irrelevant  details  connected  with  great 
historical  events  and  involved  in  salient  historical  principles.  But 
of  the  principles  or  events  themselves,  of  their  connection  with  what 
preceded  them,  and  of  their  bearing  on  what  came  after,  she  has  too 
often  no  kind  of  idea.  In  the  same  way,  she  is  tolerably  well  in- 
formed as  to  the  vegetable  and  mineral  products  of  different  districts 
in  the  United  Kingdom,  and  it  may  even  be  of  the  various  countries 
of  the  world.  That  these  districts  have  ever  been  prominent  in  the 
national  annals  for  other  reasons,  that  grave  political  issues  have 
ever  been  decided  within  them,  or  that  precisely  the  same  order  of 
things,  so  far  as  civil  and  religious  polity  is  concerned,  does  not  ob- 
tain indifferently  in  each  of  these  countries  as  in  England,  are  facts 
which  she  does  not  always  seem  to  realize. 

Is  it  wonderful  that  the  young  ladies  thus  trained  ripen  into 
wives  and  mothers,  paragons  of  their  sex  very  likely,  but  with  intel- 
lects imperfectly  developed,  or  not  developed  at  all?  They  have 
been  instructed,  not  educated.  No  attempt  to  educate  them,  save 
in  the  particular  matter  of  music  and  dancing,  has  been  made.  They 
have,  in  other  words,  been  crammed  with  the  letter  of  text-books; 
they  have  not  been  taught  in  subjects.  So  long  as  parents  are  satis- 
fied with  this,  so  long  as  the  examinations  to  which  these  young  per- 
sons periodically  submit — and  then-  success  in  which  is  cited  by  the 
lady  principal  of  the  school  as  conclusive  proof  of  the  excellence  of 
her  establishment — proceed  upon  their  present  method,  are  mere 
tests  of  book-learning,  and  not  of  general  intelligence,  such  will  con- 
tinue to  be  the  case.  The  worst  of  it  is  there  are  few  counterbal- 
ancing advantages  to  the  system  of  which  the  modern  school-girl  is 
too  frequently  the  victim.  Although  her  mind  is  not  being  en- 
riched with  philosophical  views  of  history,  it  is  not  necessarily 
turned  towards  the  theory  and  practice  of  domestic  management. 

Here  this  general  review  of  our  educational  state  may  close.  It 
has  necessarily  been  little  more  than  a  mere  summary  of  salient  feat- 
ures; it  has  been  the  narrative  of  changes  in  the  course  of  accom- 
plishment quite  as  much  as  of  reforms  actually  achieved.  It  has 
often  revealed  tendencies  rather  than  results.  The  key-note  of  the 
entire  system,  whether  as  applied  to  teachers  or  to  taught,  is  organ- 
ization; better  provision  for  the  scholars,  more  effectual  guarantees 
that  the  schoolmasters  shall  be  competent  for  their  work,  and  shall 
have  the  opportunity  of  proving  that  competence  to  the  public.     It 


EDUCATIONAL    ENGLAND.  207 

• 
is,  indeed,  with  education  as  it  is  with  the  question  of  labor  and  of 
capital,  or  of  pauperism,  or  of  co-operation.  The  sj  sb  m  ia  not  com- 
plete, the  different  duties  to  be  performed  by  its  coiiiil.ii.  m  parts 
are  not  vet  decided,  the  connecting  link  between  th<  ■  different 
parts  does  not  always  exist.  On  the  other  hand,  what  was  once  a 
void  is  now  tilled  by  complex  and  more  or  less  successful  machinery. 
The  law  insures  to  every  subject  of  the  United  Kingdom  a  ceri 
modicum  of  education;  it  does  not  guarantee  that  every  boy  who 
deserves  such  promotion,  or  who  is  capable  of  profiting  by  it,  shall 
rise,  by  a  series  of  gradual  ascents,  to  the  highest  academic  !  raining; 
but  supplemented  as  our  educational  system  is  by  private  enterprise 
and  voluntary  organization,  it  renders  it  exceedingly  improbable  that 
such  a  boy  should  not  have  the  wished-for  chance.  Something  of 
what  we  have  done  in  the  case  of  our  manufacturing  industries  wo 
have  done  in  the  case  of  education.  We  have  economized  force. 
The  great  machine  for  the  improvement  of  humanity  has  at  last 
been  fairly  put  in  motion,  its  different  jDarts  may  not  be  united  so 
compactly  as  we  shall  some  day  witness,  and  the  scale  on  which  its 
labors  are  performed  may  be  enlarged;  but  even  as  matters  are, 
the  masses  in  this  country  have  had  the  moans  of  self-elevation 
afforded  them,  and  we  know  that  there  is  springing  up  around  us  a 
new  generation  which  will  not  be  like  its  predecessors,  or  which  will, 
at  least,  have  had  at  its  disposal  influences  which  its  pr<  irs 

never  knew.  Elementary  schools,  secondary  schools,  public  scho< 
universities,  private  teachers,  private  and  public  societies,  are  now 
putting  forth  their  utmost  efforts,  and  many  of  them  are  working  in 
unity  and  accord.  That  the  fundamental  principles  of  a  complete 
system  of  national  education  are  entirely  settled  might  be  too  much 
to  say.  It  is  for  the  future  to  show  whether  the  State  will  ultimately 
recognize  the  duty  of  supplying,  at  the  cost  of  the  ratepayers,  the 
children  of  all  its  subjects  with  instruction;  whether,  in  other  wordSj 
the  "  free-schools  "  programme  will  be  realized.  Finally,  it  is  yet  a 
moot  point  how  long  the  compromise  betAvecn  such  a  system  of 
public  secular  and  private  denominational  teaching  as,  was  embod- 
ied in  the  Education  Act  of  1870  will  endure.  Every  State  grant 
given  to  any  sectarian  school  for  proficiency  in  non-religious  sub- 
jects involves  the  principle  of  denominational  endowm  mt,  and  it 
has  still  to  be  seen  whether  in  the  course  of  years  this  principle  will 
be  formally  sanctioned  or  definitely  condemned. 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

THE     SOCIAL     REVOLUTION. 

The  English  Character  gradually  losing  its  Insularity — "Why?— How  English 
Accessibility  to  Foreign  Influences  exhibits  itself — The  Eesults  of  Closeness 
and  Frequency  of  Communication  between  England  and  France,  especially 
as  manifested  in  English  Domestic  Life — The  "Flat"  System — Gallicized 
English  Households—Some  of  the  Results  and  Dangers  to  be  expected 
from  this  Emancipation  from  National  Prejudices — Modern  Cynicism — 
Modern  Cosmopolitanism — Change  in  Ideas  and  Practice  of  Domestic  Life 

^-^  — The  Old  Country  Gentleman  and  the  New — Society  v.  Home — Parents 
and  Children — Husbands  and  Wives — Marriage  and  Independence — Tend- 
ency to  Free  and  Equal  Intercourse  of  the  Sexes :  how  favored  and  illus- 
trated by  the  Usages  of  Modem  Life — The  Fashionable  Englishwoman's 
Day — Change  in  the  Bearing  of  Men  towards  Women. 

THE  English  character  is  gradually  losing  the  insularity  that  has 
long  been  the  moral  heritage  of  our  geographical  situation, 
and  is  divesting  itself  of  the  tastes,  prejudices,  and  habits  which 
have  been  regarded  as  inseparable  from  the  race.  The  social  re- 
lations established  between  England  and  France  exist  more  or  less 
intimately  between  England  and  other  European  countries.  The 
summer  vacations  of  the  average  Englishman  are  spent  abroad — at 
French  watering-places,  which  are  not  more  expensive  than  English, 
and  which  have  a  charm  of  novelty  that  English  do  not  possess;  in 
Brittany;  in  the  Bavarian  Tyrol;  at  the  German  spas;  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Alps;  by  the  shores,  no  longer  solitary,  of  the  Swiss 
lakes.  Or  the  Anglo-Saxon  holiday-maker  goes  farther  afield,  and, 
performing  the  grand  tour  on  a  scale  worthy  of  the  larger  notions 
of  these  later  days,  puts  a  girdle  round  hah  the  world,  and  embraces 
a  hemisphere  in  his  arduous  pilgrimage  of  pleasure.  He  studies 
life  under  a  republic  in  the  United  States,  or  he  watches  the  work- 
ing of  the  machinery  of  empire  in  India,  or  he  endeavors  to  mark, 
by  personal  investigation,  the  differences  between  constitutional  gov- 
ernment as  it  exists  in  England,  and  constitutional  government  as 
it  is  transplanted  to  our  Australasian  dependencies.  If  he  is  unable 
to  accomplish  all  this  in  a  single  expedition,  he  still  frequently  con- 
trives to  leave  the  well-worn  Alpine  tracks  far  behind,  and  sets  his 


THE    SOCIAL    REVk  W.  290 

face  in  the  direction  of  the  Scythian  steppes  <>r  th<  .  crown  of 

Ararat.  Not  a  year  passes  in  which  adventurous  Britons  do  not 
achieve  feats  hitherto  unattempted,  and  the  influ<  uce  of  th< 
l>loits  is  never  lost.  The  names  of  such  men  as  MEacgregor,  Bur- 
naby,  Bryce,  Grove,  Freshfield,  become  the  watchword  of  the  risinc 
generation  of  Englishmen,  and  their  exploits  the  standard  of  true 
British  adventure. 

It  is,  however,  the  intimacy  between  England  and  France  wh< 
effects  are  chiefly  manifested  upon  the  well-to-do  classes  of  English 
society.  Hitherto  international  political  relations  have  been  mainly 
confined  to  diplomatists  and  statesmen  actually  in  office.  It  is  a 
new  experience  to  find  gentlemen  who  sit  below  the  gangway,  or  on 
the  front  bench  on  the  Opposition  side  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
exchanging  visits  with  M.  Grevy  and  M.  Gambetta  Nor  is  it  only 
the  increased  space  and  attention  given  to  French  affairs  in  the 
English  newspapers  which  cause  a  growing  section  of  newspa] 
readers  to  take  as  much  interest  in  the  debates  at  Versailles  as  in 
those  at  Westminster,  and  to  understand  perhaps  scarcely  less  about 
them.  A  practical  experience  of  the  conduct  of  parliamentary  busi- 
ness in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  has  ceased  to  be  confined  to  a 
limited  number  of  those  whose  business  it  is  to  lead  and  enlighfa  n 
English  public  opinion  in  the  press;  and  many  a  man  who  a  I 
years  ago  would  have  had  no  other  object  in  a  trip  to  Paris  than  to 
eat  dinners,  visit  theaters,  or  see  the  races  at  Chantilly,  finds  him- 
self impelled  to  pick  up  what  he  can  of  French  political  knowledge 
by  witnessing  French  political  institutions  actively  at  work. 

The  consequences  of  all  this  meet  us  in  England  at  every  turn. 
English  theatrical  managers  go  to  French  dramatists  for  th<  ir  new- 
pieces,  just  as  Roman  playwrights  went  to  Greek.     Our  daily  way 
of  life  is  largely  accommodated  to  French  practice;  our  bills  of  fere 
are  drawn  up  in  the  French  language.     In  sonic  instances  our  ser- 
vants are  French,  Swiss,  German,  or  Italian.     The  "flat"  system, 
borrowed  from  France,  has  now  existed  on  a  considerable  scale  in 
London  some  fifteen  years,  and  at  the  present  time  is  in  gr< 
growing  favor.     In  the  course  of  five  years  the  rents  of  llats  have 
doubled;  Victoria  Street,  Westminster,  is  ahoui;  equally  divided  into 
the  offices  of  parliamentary  lawyers,  colonial  agents,  engineers,  I 
into  domestic  dwellings.     These  last  consist  in  every  case  of  ft 
The  sum  paid  annually  for  a  suite  of  eighl  j  on  th  ind 

floor  is  not  less  than  £250.     The  drawing-room  floor  commands  a 
still  larger  sum;  and  unless  the  tenant  chooses  to  ascend  i  i  the  lo 
level  of  the  garrets,  no  set  of  apartments  can  be  procured  in  this 


300  ENGLAND. 

quarter  of  the  town  for  less  than  £150.  At  Queen  Anne's  Gate 
there  has  sprung  up  a  colossal  block  wherein  resides  an  immense 
aggregate  of  families.  Here  attendance  and  cookery  are  forthcom- 
ing as  well  as  house-room,  with,  of  course,  a  proportionate  charge 
for  both.  Dinners  and  other  meals  may  be  taken  in  the  private 
apartments  of  the  occupiers,  or  in  the  public  saloon.  The  rents 
paid  are  fixed  at  figures  which  might  be  thought  prohibitory,  yet 
few  sets  of  rooms  ever  remain  long  vacant.  No  arrangement  can 
be  imagined  more  diametric  all  v  antagonistic  to  the  tastes  with  which 
Englishmen  are  generally  credited.  A  fiat,  it  may  be  said,  is  merely 
a  house,  with  this  difference,  that  the  rooms  are  arranged,  not  on 
the  perpendicular  plan,  but  on  the  horizontal.  It  also  possesses 
what  may  well  seem  a  great  advantage  to  busy  men  or  women  who 
are  anxious  to  purchase  the  seclusion  of  domestic  life  at  the  cost  of 
as  little  inconvenience  as  possible.  The  tenant  of  a  flat  'is  able  to 
compound  for. all  the  various  petty  charges  incidental  to  the  house- 
holder by  payment  of  a  lump  sum.  The  flats  belong  to  a  company; 
the  company  has  a  secretary,  and  it  is  the  business  of  that  officer  to 
see  that  the  fabric  of  the  apartments  of  each  tenant  is  kept  in  proper 
order,  and  that  no  just  complaint  remains  without  attention.  There 
are  other  advantages  connected  with  the  flat  system  of  which  the 
English  paterfamilias  is  fully  as  conscious  as  the  Continental.  He 
can  leave  London  at  a  moment's  notice  with  his  wife,  children,  and 
servants;  or  he  can  take  his  children  and  wife  with  him,  sending 
the  servants  on  a  holiday,  secure  in  the  knowledge  that  his  abode 
is  hermetically  sealed  behind  him;  that  there  is  danger  neither  from 
the  street  burglar  nor  from  the  charwoman — the  traditional  custo- 
dian of  the  London  house  when  the  family  are  out  of  town — and  the 
strange  relatives  and  unsavory  friends  whom  that  person  may  invite 
into  the  drawing-room  during  the  period  of  her  occupancy. 

For  all  this  we  are  mainly  indebted  to  the  force  of  French  ex- 
ample, and  the  new  regime  suggests  the  necessity  of  modifying  the 
conventional  conceptions  of  the  English  character.  It  is  not  an 
argument  to  drive  too  far;  but  one  is  induced  to  draw  from  it  the 
inference  that  the  ice  of  English  reserve  is  gradually  melting,  and 
that  the  time  may  bo  coming  when  the  English  table  d'hote  at  hotels 
and  elsewhere  shall  seem  less  artificially  strange  than,  as  we  have 
seen  in  the  preceding  chapter,  it  does  at  present.  As  it  is,  we  En- 
glish are  now  in  a  transition  state.  We  have  adopted  many  of  the 
outward  observances  of  the  country  which  is  separated  from  us  by 
the  Straits  of  Dover — French  cookery,  French  wines,  French  art. 
We  have  still  completely  to  assimilate  some  of  the  qualities  of  French 


THE    SOCIAL    REVOLUTION. 

manners.     The  attempt  to  reproduce  the  Continental  hou  is 

not  quite  unknown  in  England.     In  some  cases  the  efforl  is  an 
tation,  in  others  it  is  made  from  a  conviction  that  it  is  the  m 
effective  way  of  securing  domestic  comfort,  with  a  certain  amount 

of  domestic  elegance.     English  servants  arc  not  in  good   repute. 
They  are  often  idle,  exacting,  thankless,  incompetent,  wasteful,  and 

dishonest.     There  are  a  few  English  households  in  which  nol  a  sin- 
gle English  servant  is  kept,  and  in  which,  except  when  company  are 
entertained,  not  a  single  word  of  English  is  spoken.     The  children 
are  taught  to  prattle  French  and  German  in  advance  of  their  o 
tongue.     There  are  German  and  French  nursemaids,  the  cook 
Belgian,  the  parlor-maid  Swiss,  the  footman  Italian.     You  have  no 
sooner  entered  the  home  managed  upon  such  principles  :ts  tin 
than  you  find  English  ways,  habits,  furniture,  arc  left  behind     The 
ornaments  visible  are  French.     The  manner  in  which  the  furniture 
is  arranged  is  French  also.     Eminently  Frci>c;i.  too,  are  il>"  polished 
wooden  floors,  the  fireplaces,  and  the  decorations  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  fireplace.     It  is  the  same  at  table — a  good  dinner,  but 
not  an  English  one.     Such  households  as  these  are  exceptional, 
but  they  exist,  and  they  illustrate  the  tendency  of  the  time. 

Naturally  there  is  a  rather  ridiculous  side  to  this  systematic  ac- 
climatization of  foreign  modes.     There  has  been  developed  a  i\\w  of 
character  confined  to  no  particular  age  and  to  neither  sex,  of  which 
the  chief  feature  is  an  adventitious  aversion  to  every  thing  distinct- 
ively English.     Such  people,  having  visited  tlus  Continent  two  or 
three  years  in  succession,  return  possessed  by  a  spirit  of  profound 
intolerance  for  the  institutions  and  ways  of  their  fatherland.     Th 
find  the  English  theaters  temples  of  dullness,  the  English  press  a 
scheme  of  organized  platitudes.     They  prefer  bad  French  cookery 
to  sound  English  fare.     They  discover  that  the  British  breakfasl  is 
a  barbarous  and  indigestible  meal,  and  straightway  they  sub 
the  "  dejeuner  a  la  fourchette."     They  patronize  French  boot;' 
and  dressmakers.     They  profess  a  sudden  ignorance  of  the  good 
qualities  of  Great  Britain.     They  boldly  avow  their  inability  to 
derstand  British  prejudices.     This  is  a  social  variety  which  has  in- 
deed become  so  common  as  scarcely  to  attract  notic< 

There  are  influences  more  important  than  those  which  U<r  p 
cess  of  gradual  and  partial  emancipation  from  English  prejudice  and 
habit  has  exercised  upon  the  English  character.     Our  Btage,  as  I 
been  said,  is  inundated  with-comedies  and  farces,  of  which  the  mo- 
tive, the  plot,  and  the  moral  are  French  alone.     Then-  is  no  doubt 
that , many  of  our  ideas  of  social  propriety  are  as  directly  of  G  tllic 


302  ENGLAND. 

origin  as  the  dramas  enacted  behind  the  footlights.  French  litera- 
ture, and  foreign  travel,  familiarity  with  the  more  liberal  views  of  Con- 
tinental society — above  all,  the  influences  ,of  the  Second  Empire — 
have  caused  us  to  regard  many  of  our  old-world  notions  of  right  and 
wrong,  the  venial  error  or  the  unpardonable  sin,  as  ridiculously  nar- 
row and  obsoletely  puritanical.  Especially  are  these  views,  as  well 
as  their  practical  results,  apparent  in  the  relations,  which  nowadays 
obtain  between  the  sexes.  The  truth  seems  to  be,  that  in  this  mat- 
ter, as  in  others,  we  have  shaken  off  the  constraints  which  were  once 
accepted  in  English  society  without  question,  or  rebelled  against 
with  much  peril,  and  have  not  yet  learned  by  practice  what  are  the 
corresponding  or  compensating  constraints  in  foreign  society.  Fur- 
ther, this  kind  of  cosmopolitanism  engenders  a  more  or  less  cynical 
disbelief  in  the  reality  and  value  of  many  old-fashioned  virtues  or  in- 
stitutions. We  are  still  a  nation  of  patriots;  but  what  is  the  result 
which  a  systematic  habit  of  depreciating  the  sentiments  that  lie  at 
the  root  of  patriotism  must  have  upon  a  patriotic  people  ?  English 
patriotism,  too,  was  always  nurtured  by  the  substance  of  local  at- 
tachment. The  love  of  country  in  the  abstract  has  been  resolvable 
into  definite  concrete  constituents — the  love  of  English  institutions, 
of  the  principles  of  English  liberty  and  justice,  of  the  beauties  in  the 
English  landscape,  the  richness  of  English  woodlands,  the  varied 
tints  of  English  hills  and  English  plains;  and  not  only  the  love  of 
these,  but  the  belief  in  them  as  objects  worthy  of  admiration,  and  as 
objects  to  be  found  alone  in  our  island  home.  This  is  a  truth  which 
English  history,  and  which  English  literature— itself  the  record  and 
expression  of  English  history — attest.  But  the  homage  which  it  im- 
plies, and  the  devotion  to  which  it  points,  are  they  not  diminishing 
now  ?  Is  it  a  healthy  sign  that  we  should  be  passing,  if  we  have  not 
indeed  passed  already,  from  patriotic  enthusiasm  and  self-exaltation 
to  a  mood  of  indifference  and  disparagement  ?  English  tourists  and 
holiday-makers  are  apt  to  cultivate  and  to  know  all  countries  save 
their  own.  There  is  even  a  tendency  among  the  English  aristocracy 
to  regard  England  as  a  country  chiefly  important  because  it  supplies 
their  rentals,  furnishes  them  with  good  shooting,  and  the  best  hunt- 
ing in  the  world. 

The  change  that  has  taken  place  in  the  English  view  of  life  is  not 
confined  to  a  mere  extension  of  the  horizon  of  our  daily  experience, 
to  a  large  toleration  of  the  stranger  and  the  alien,  to  new  modes  of 
thought;  and  to  fresh  topics  of  conversation.  The  domestic  life  of 
England  has  undergone  a  complete  metamorphosis.  For  the  nation 
is  only  an  aggregate  of  hoiiseholds.     Modern  society  is  possessed  by 


THE    SOCIAL    REVOLUTION. 

a  nomadic  spirit,  which  is  the  sure  destroyer  of  bH  home  ties.     T. 
English  aristocracy  pass  their  existence  in  ,1  round  is. 

Theyflit  from  mansion  to  mansion  during  the  country-h  m; 

they  know  no  peace  during  the  London  in.     They  seldom  en- 

dure the  tranquillity  of  their  own  homes  in  the 
than  a  month  at  a  time,  and  then  they  '.  ide 

by  a  succession  of  visitors  from  the  greal  tence  for  the 

fashionable  and  the  wealthy  is  thus  one  unending  whirl  of  excite- 
ment, admitting- small  opportunity  for  the  cultivation  oi 
tic  affections,  no  time  for  reflection,  or  the  formation  oi  thos<   virtues 
which  depend  upon  occasional  intervals  of  thoughi  and  seclusion. 

Here  and  there  in  some  secluded  corner  of  the  country  may  be 
found  a  survival  from  the  old  school  of  country  squire,  who  is  re- 
garded with  only  an  antiquarian  interest  by  his  descendants  of  to- 
day.    He  is  not  a  great  landlord;  he  is  what,  in  the  present 
immense  fortunes,  would  be  even  regarded  as  a  poor  man;  he  ha 
rental  of  some  four  thousand  a  year,  he  has  never  speculate.!,  an  1 
he  is  content  if  he  can  transmit  this  fortune,  not  largely  augment*  1 
but  not   diminished,  to  his  son.     His  whole  being  is  absorbed 
his   acres,   his   farms,   his  tenants,   and  his  dependents.     He   lii 
among  his  own  people,  and  the  thought  has  never  occurred  to        I 
that  he  might  spend  half  his  time  elsewhere.     Thirty  years  a 
took  his  eldest  boy  to  Eton,  and  on  the  occasion  of  thai  memorable 
event  he  accepted  the  hospitality  of  a  friend  and  contemporary,  a 
fellow  of  the   royal   foundation.     But  with  this   exception  he   has 
not  once  slept  away  from  home  in  the  course  of  those  three  de- 
cades.    Well  stricken  in  years  he  is  still  hale  and    vigorous;    he 
can  walk  over  several  miles  of  his  own  ground  in  a  day,  and    is 
fully  equal  to  longer  excursions  on  the  back  of  his  stout  sure-foote  1 
cob.     The  life  which  he  leads  now  is  the  life  which  he  has  always 
led,  not  that  necessitated  by  the  infirmity  of  years,  but  the  r    all  of 
circumstances  and  custom.     When  he  was  twenty  years  youn 
had  as  little  wish  to  make  protracted  absences  from  home  as  he  has 
now.     He  remained  where  his  lot  had  placed  him  and  his  forefath 
before  him,  and  he  was  content.     He  is  hospitable,  and  knows  every 
family  in  the  county.     If  you  visit  him  you  will  meei  in- 

try  folk,  unless  it  be  the  friends  whom  his  sons  have  I 
them  from  London.     The  hospitality,  meted  out 
is  there  for  all  to  enjoy.     But  with  the  exception  just   nam* 
company  gathered  to  partake  of  it  is  the  sam<   :i 
composition  as  that  which  congregated  tin  re  a  c<  aku  And 

the  talk,  too,  is  purely  old-world  talk.     The  youn-  men   fa  Bh  bom 


304:  ENGLAND. 

Pall  Mall  clubs,  or  Temple  chambers,  or  regimental  mess  may  dis- 
cuss some  of  the  events  and  scandals  of  the  hour,  what  is  doing  at 
the  theaters,  what  will  be  the  next  political  combination  at  West- 
minster, what  the  next  elopement  in  Ma}-  Fair.  Such  gossip  as  this 
only  brings  into  stronger  relief  the  themes  which  furnish  the  staple 
of  the  general  talk;  and  as  you  sit  and  listen  to  the  two  sets  of 
speakers  by  turns,  you  begin  to  realize  that  they  are  separated  from 
each  other  by  the  gulf  that  divides  two  eras  of  our  social  history. 

Compare  now  with  this  specimen  of  a  bygone  epoch  the  English 
squire  a  la  mode,  opulent  commoner,  baronet,  or  peer,  whether  he  is 
or  is  not  in  the  front  rank  of  the  territorial  aristocracy.  He  has  in- 
herited a  fine  estate,  possibly  more  estates  than  one,  and  he  takes  a 
pride  in  it  or  them.  He  has  traveled  much,  been  round  the  world, 
and  on  his  return  to  England  he  went  into  the  army,  just  in  the  same 
way  that  a  few  years  earlier  he  went  to  Eton  or  to  Oxford.  Or  he  may 
have  lived  among  more  stirring  scenes.  Instead  of  having  passed  ten 
years  in  the  Guards,  and  been  a  great  campaigner  in  London,  he  may 
have  seen  active  service  in  India  and  in  the  Crimea.  But  he  has,  as 
he  calls  it,  settled  down  now.  He  is  a  keen  sportsman,  and  he  is 
something  of  a  scientific  farmer.  He  breeds  stock  of  all  sorts,  and 
he  is  an  excellent  judge  of  stock.  He  has  indeed  a  passion  for  cat- 
tle, and  has  been  known  to  give  as  much  as  £4,000  for  a  shorthorn. 
In  a  word,  he  has  all  the  tastes  and  knowledge  of  a  country  gentle- 
man, and  that  is  what  he  calls  himself.  But  the  country  house  of 
which  he  is  proprietor  probably  does  not  see  him  for  more  than  two  v 
or  three  months  out  of  the  twelve,  and  never  for  more  than  two  or 
three  weeks  at  a  time.  There  is  always  business,  social,  political, 
and  financial,  or  some  pleasure  scheme  as  urgent  as  business,  which 
requires  his  presence  in  London.  He  spends  a  week  in  November 
at  the  fine  old  place  which  he  has  inherited,  and  then  the  thought 
strikes  him  that  he  will  take  the  train  to  the  me  ropolis  and  see  a  ; 
theater  or  two.  London,  it  is  true,  is  conventionally  empty,  but 
there  are  sure  to  be  acquaintances  at  the  club.  During  the  London 
season  he  is,  of  course,  in  London  more  or  less  continuously.  There 
is  an  occasional  run  across  to  Paris,  and  when  the  London  season  is 
over,  there  are  Goodwood  and  Cowes,  and  a  little  Continental  trip. 
Before  settling  in  for  the  winter  he  braces  his  system  and  invigor- 
ates his  family  by  a  fortnight  at  some  English  watering-place.  This 
biings  him  to  the  first  month  of  winter,  and  he  beguiles  the  period 
of  his  duty  as  country  gentleman  by  the  reception  of  a  series  of 
guests  from  London.  He  does  not,  indeed,  neglect  the  county 
society,  in  spite  of  his  nomadic  existence,  looks  closely  after  his 


THE    SOCIAL    REVOLV 

affairs,  and  exercises  a  general  and  real  supervision  of  every  thi 

He  is  a  good  landlord  and,  when  he  is  at  ! •<•.  >  good  neighl 

His  peculiarity  is  a  constant  and   insatiable   d< 
Change,  that  is,  of  scene,  for  of  the  same  companions  he 
seems  to  w  sary.     The  truth  is,  that  for  those  who  live,  as  ii  i  -  ■         ', 
"in  s«  "  there  is  but  one  society  all  the  world  over,  abroad  or 

at  home,  in  town  or  in  country.  A  modern  country  house  i 
I  ideally  the  same  as  a  London  house  transplanted  to  a  park,  girdled 
with  trees  and  hills,  and  commanding  extensive  views  of  rich  level 
meadows.  The  men  and  women  arc  the  same  thai  met  each  other 
daily  a  few  months  since  in  Rotten  Row,  at  the  opera,  at  dinner  par- 
ties, receptions,  public  balls.  It  is  conversati  in,  for  the  most  part, 
in  which  those  who  do  not  live  the  same  lit:'  can  feel  small  in'. 
and  take  no  part.  It  is.  not  provincial  chatter,  hut  it  is  lpcal  and 
personal,  the  locality  being  London,  and  it  is  not  readily  compre- 
hended by  the  provincial  neighbors  who  happen  to  be  present 

The  influences  of  the  time  are  not  favorable  to  domestic  ;>  I 

in  our  progress  towards  cosmopolitanism  the  taste  for  the  family  life 
which  was  once  supposed  to  be  the  special  characteristic  of  Ei  •  I 
has  to  a  great  extent  been  lost.  The  claims  of  society  have  contin- 
ually acquired  precedence  of  the  duties  of  home.  The  heart  <>t'  the 
modern  mother  may  in  reality  yearn  with  the  same  fondness  as  of 
old  towards  her  offspring;  she  does  not  permit  herself,  or  ev<  it  i  do 
not  permit  her,  the  same  opportunity  of  indulging  it;  she  has  her 
own  position  to  assert  in  the  great  world;  she  has  the  ambition  of 
husband  to  remember  and  advance.     Society!'  some  th<  i 

before  whom  women  prostrate  themselves,  and  the  mothers  who 
used  to  live  for  their  children  have  chosen  to  live  for  their  acquaint- 
ances.  This  tendency  and  this  resolve  act — as  they  cannot  b  i 
acting — as  the  solvent  of  household  ties  and  domestic  obligati 
Neither  father  no1*  mother  would  allow  that  parental  duties  wi  i 
neglected,  but  they  might  confess  that  they  were  vicariously  i 
charged.  They  wpuld  urge  apologetically  the  multiplicity  <  f  t!,.  fcr 
social  engagements,   and  the  imperi  ssity  of  attending 

them.     They  would  proceed  to  assure  you  that   all  which    bur      I 
care  could  do  towards  seeing  that  their  children  enjoyed  id- 

vantage  had  been  done,  that  they  inquired  in  the  most  Beard 
manner  as  to  the  character  of  the  nurses  and  governesses  whom 
they  engaged,  and  always  impressed  upon  their  sons  the  paramount 
neec issil y  of  keeping  out  of  scrapes — "Do  as  I  say;  □  I  do" — 

and  making  desirable  acquaintances  al  school.     All  this  maj  I 
and  creditable  enough,  but  it  rests  on  th<  option  that  a  pari 

20 


306  ENGLAND. 

can  satisfactorily  delegate  to  tutors  or  governors  the  sum  of  those 
duties  which  he  owes  to  his  child.  The  natural  outcome  of  this  is 
that  the  fashionable  parents  of  the  present  day  have  little  more  than 
a  mere  superficial  acquaintance  with  their  own  children.  If  this  ac- 
quaintance is  not  cultivated  early,  it  cannot  be  cultivated  late.  If 
the  father  or  mother  does  not  invite  and  train  the  confidence  of  their 
son  or  daughter  when  the  quality  of  truthfulness,  which  with  chil- 
dren is  an  instinct,  has  not  been  abused  or  blunted,  it  will  not  be  won 
in  after  life ;  and  if  son  or  daughter  make  shipwreck  of  their  future, 
the  parental  grief  may  be  deep  and  the  disappointment  sincere,  but 
a  heavy  responsibility  will  lie  at  the  household  door. 

There  are  other  points  at  which  manifestations  may  be  observed 
of  the  change  which  the  domestic  system  of  England  is  undergoing. 
The  ultimate  guarantee,  the  sole  sure  condition  of  domestic  unity,  is 
the  identity  of  interest  between  husband  and  wife.  Conjugal  fidel- 
ity has  not  in  times  past  been  confined  to  this  country,  and  the  sanc- 
tity of  the  marriage  tie  has  not  been  an  exclusively  English  idea.  It 
is,  however,  an  idea  on  which  a  very  remarkable  degree  of  emphasis 
has  been  laid  in  England.  It  is  impossible  to  deny  that  the  rela- 
tions between  husband  and  wife  show  often  an  increasing  laxity. 
Here,  as  in  other  things,  we  have  qualified  our  native  views  by  com- 
parison and  contact  with  French  examples.  The  very  phrases  by 
which,  in  the  French  vernacular,  marriages  of  different  sorts  have 
long  been  spoken  of,  have  become  naturalized  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. The  flirtations  of  girlhood  are  perpetuated  or  reproduced  in 
what  was  once  the  staid  and  decorous  epoch  of  matronhood.  Nor 
is  it  merely  that  such  things  are;  they  are  conventionally  recognized 
as  existing,  and  when  recognition  has  been  once  won  for  a  fact  or  a 
custom,  it  has  practically  obtained  a  social  sanction. 

Marriage  is,  as  it  will  continue  to  be,  the  grand  object  in  life  to 
every  young  Englishwoman;  it  is  only  the  theory  of  marriage  which 
has  been  altered.  The  central  idea,  the  very  type  of  marriage  with 
the  English  girl  used  to  be — with  tens  of  thousands  of  English  girls 
is  still — home.  But  in  the  higher  strata  of  society  girls  marry  in  a 
large  proportion  of  instances,  not  that  they  may  become  wives,  moth- 
ers, mistresses  of  households,  but  mistresses  of  themselves,  and  are 
often  goaded  into  it  by  a  sense  that  a  fashionable  mother  finds  them 
inconveniently  in  the  way.  An  establishment,  horses  and  carriages, 
dresses  and  jewelry:  these,  of  course,  are  aims  which  need  no  jus- 
tification. What  we  are  now  chiefly  concerned  with  is  the  accepted 
ideal  of  uxorial  independence.  The  mere  command  of  money  is 
indeed  a  fascinatingly  novel  experience  to  most  English  girls,  and  it 


THE    SOCIAL    REVOLUTION.  ;;n7 

is  probable  that  a  more  liberal  supply  of  pocket  than  i 

even  to  the  daughters  of  wealthy  parents,  would  do  them  no  harm. 

As  it  is,  girl-  \  life  are  apt  to  get  inl 

mea  mature  contraction  of  lenl  and  extras 

habits.     But  many  English  girls  have  other  tastes  than  the  simple 
and  perfectly  legitimate  pleasure  which  the  anticipate  trol  of 

pocket-money  gives.  They  arc  fond  of  paintings,  of  art,  of  playing 
the  hostess,  of  admiration.  Ti  may  be,  if  their  temperament  is 
the  severer  kind,  they  are  fund  of  politics,  literature,  or  science,  in 
any  one  of  these  cases  the  wife  speedily  creates  for  herself  a  Little 
world  of  her  own,  in  which  the  husband  only  figures  as  an  occa- 
sional \isitor. 

Even  when  the  spirit  of  feminine  independence  after  marri 
does  not  assume  quite  so  emancipated  a  form  as  this,  it  very  often 
asserts  itself  in  a  manner  comparatively  new  to  English  society. 
The  acceptance  gained  by  the  rite  of  five  o'clock  tea  is  the  symbol 
|  of  the  ascendency  of  the  softer  over  the  sterner  sex.  The  inc< 
:  of  knightly  worship  easily  blends  itself  with  the  fragrance  which  the 
delicate  china  cups  exhale,  and  the  world,  touched  at  the  Bight,  ad- 
mits the  propriety  of  the  homage.  The  increased  popularity  of 
garden  parties,  water  parties,  and  those  al  fresco  banquets  which 
retain  their  original  name  of  picnics;  of  Syde  Park,  as  a  lounge  and 
a  promenade;  of  such  pastimes  as  lawn  tennis  and  croquet  if  in- 
deed croquet  anywhere  survives;  of  Hurlingham,  as  an  afternoon 
resort  during  the  London  season;  of  the  (hie.  I  tb,  whether  in 
its  Twickenham  or  London  house,  as  a  meeting-ground  for  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  are  all  indications  of  Vnc  undoubted  tendency  to 
multiply  as  far  as  possible  the  opportunities  of  reunion,  friendly  or 
formal,  between  women  and  their  actual  or  potential  admirera 

The  daily  life  of  a  modern  English  girl  or  matron— it  make  i  Little 
difference  which,  for  the  former  will  be  duly  chaperoned,  and  a 
the  latter,  her  husband  has  his  own  affairs  to  attend  to— in  the  full 
swing  of  the  Loudon  season,  will  show  something  of  tent  to 

which  we  have  cast  off  the  old-1     hioned  r  its,  and  the  p<  i 

ance  with  which  we  war  against  the  shyness  thai  has  long  b< 
Briton's  reproach.  There  is  the  morning's  ride  in  the  Row  from 
noon  to  two.  All  London  is  there;  and  it  Is  a  sight  unique  in  the 
world.  But,  if  you  are  a  stranj  er,  you  should  have  a  cicerone  who 
is  tolerably  trustworthy  and  omniscient.  The  beauty  and  the  splen- 
dor of  the  scene  you  can  admire  without  such  instruction.  I 
trees,  London   trees  though  the;  are    mas  es  of  well 

greenery,  and  grateful  indeed  is  the  shade  the;    afford  n 


308  ENGLAND. 

July  sun.  The  footpaths,  which  have  the  iron  rails  on  the  one  hand, 
are  lined  with  shrubs  and  flower-beds  on  the  other.  The  rhododen- 
drons have  not  yet  lost  their  bloom.  There  is  the  scent  of  roses  in 
the  air;  the  perfume  of  mignonette;  and  now  and  again  you  catch 
the  aromatic  odor  of  the  fir-trees  lightly  blown  on  the  summer  air. 
Hyde  Park  adds  to  its  attractions  as  the  most  entertaining  prom- 
enade in  the  world,  all  the  charms  with  which  successive  landscape 
gardeners  have  been  able  to  enrich  it.  There  are  not  less  than  ten 
thousand  men  and  women  on  the  paths  which  fringe  the  ride,  alter- 
nately gazing  at  the  beauty  of  flowers  and  herbage,  and  the  dazzling 
variety  of  the  human  panorama.  Every  nation  may  say  that  it  is 
represented.  There  are  ambassadors  from  every  civilized  kingdom 
in  existence,  attaches  taking  then  morning  ride  before  the  diploma- 
tic toils  of  the  day  begin.  India  and  Japan  send  their  contingents 
to  the  equestrian  array — Japanese  who  have  come  from  a  home 
already  Anglicized  to  acquire  the  finishing  touches  of  an  English 
education,  and  Hindu  youths  who  have  defeated  English  under- 
graduates on  their  own  ground.  There  are  pretenders  to  foreign 
crowns,  mounted  on  steeds  as  faulty  as  their  own  monarchical  claims; 
and  there  are  foreign  merchants — Greeks,  Armenians,  Spaniards, 
Italians- — careering  on  horses  which  are  the  most  perfect  specimens 
of  their  kind  that  money  and  breeding  can  procure.  Many  mem- 
bers of  the  two  Houses  of  the  English  Parliament  are  there  too,  not 
a  few  men  of  business,  more  of  pleasure,  and  more  still  who  are 
both.  There  are  ladies  of  every  age,  position,  degree  of  beauty  and 
virtue,  rank,  circumstance,  and  position  in  life — fair  girls  to  whom 
the  whole  scene  is  a  novelty,  and  one  fraught  with  an  excitement 
half  painful,  half  bewildering;  girls  on  whom  it  is  beginning  to  pall, 
and  who  go  through  the  whole  thing  mechanically;  mere  happy 
children  scampering  and  exercising  their  ponies. 

As  our  imaginary  heroine  enters  the  Row  she  is  not  alone,  and 
before  she  has  gone  half  a  dozen  paces  she  falls  in  with  a  phalanx  of 
friends  of  both  sexes.  A  walk  gives  place  to  a  canter,  and  then  a 
canter  to  a  walk.  And  so  with  gossip  and  exercise  the  morning 
passes  away,  and  the  lady  on  whom  we  are  in  attendance  turns  her 
horse's  head  towards  home.  There,  in  all  probability,  one  or  two 
early  visitors  have  already  come,  and  the  chatter  of  Rotten  Row  ia 
exchanged  for  the  precisely  similar  chatter  of  the  luncheon-table. 
Afterwards  may  come  an  hour's  pause,  unless  indeed  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  done  before  five  o'clock  tea  is  served,  and  the  hour  for 
the  evening's  drive  in  the  Ladies'  Mile  arrives.  Very  possibly,  how- 
ever, some  engagement  has  been  formed  for  the  afternoon,   and 


THE    SOCIAL    REVOLUTION.  809 

hmcli  is  little  more  than  well  over  ere  the  "world  again  claims  the 
presence  of  our  ideal  dame  or  demoiselle.  It  is  perhaps  one  of  1 1 1  *  - 
Saturdays  on  which  the  tournament  of  doves  is  held  at  Fulham,  ami 
a  drive  thither  has  been  arranged  on  the  box-seal  <>!'  the  coach  "f  an 
amateur  but  eminent  whip.  Two  ladies  and  three  or  lour  gentlemen 
are  the  complement  of  passengers,  and  Hurlingham  is  their  desti- 
nation— a  spacious  inclosure  fenced  round  by  trees,  witb  tents, 
pavilions,  and  a  semi-circular  ring  of  spectators,  T  •  ire  1 1 1 < * 
traps  from  which  presently  the  blue  rocks,  strong  of  win  an. I  1.  I 
to  kill,  will  be  let  loose.  There  are  the  noble  sportsmen,  and  th 
beyond  is  the  knot  of  betting  men  engaged  in  makin 
and  laying  the  noble  sjDortsmen  odds  on  the  birds.  In  a  few  minutes 
business  will  commence,  and  you  will  hear  nothing  but  alternately, 
or  simultaneously,  the  inarticulate  murmurs  of  polite  talk,  tin-  suc- 
cessive cracks  of  the  guns,  and  anon  the  hoarse  roars  of  the  gentle- 
men of  the  betting  ring. 

Theoretically  this  advance  which  we  have  made  in  the  direction 
of  a  system  of  social  intercourse  between  the  two  sexes,  conducted, 
as  nearly  as  may  be,  on  terms  of  complete  equality,  may  he  consid- 
ered an  improvement.  But  the  equality  is  not  vet  entirely  estab- 
lished; the  process  is  not  without  certain  hitches  and  awkward 
and  some  of  the  evils  of  a  state  of  transition  have  to  disappear. 
The  liberty  is  still  a  little  new,  and  it  may  be  that  the  deep  draughts 
of  it  which  are  taken  are  a  trifle  too  powerful  for  our  as  yet  unsea- 
soned social  system.  Intoxicated  with  a  sense  of  their  recently 
acqirired  privileges,  the  emancipated  victims  of  outward  restraints 
may  be  led  to  extravagances  and  extremes  which  they  should  be 
careful  to  avoid  when  they  know  better  what  it  is  not  to  wear  the 
yoke.  If  social  scandals  are  more  common  now  than  was  once  the 
case,  it  must  be  attributed,  charitably,  not  to  the  new  system,  hut 
to  the  fact  that  the  system  is  new.  When  the  novelty  is  worn  away 
so  will  be  the  peril,  and  young  men  and  maidens,  recovering  the 
conventional  balance,  will  exhibit  only  the  fair  side  of  the  social 
revolution. 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

THE    STRUCTURE    OF    ENGLISH    SOCIETY. 

Three  Elements  in  English  Society — Fusion  between  the  Aristocracies  of  Birth 
and  Wealth — Results  of  the  Process — Patricians  in  Trade — Gratification  of 
Democratic  Instinct,  and  Maintenance  of  Aristocratic  Principle — The  State 
of  Things  thus  brought  about  favorable  to  Plutocracy — Absence  of  a  Noblesse 
in  England — Results  of  this  Absence  contrasted  with  Consequences  of  its 
Presence  in  Austria,  &c. — Table  of  English  Precedence,  and  the  Principles 
on  which  it  is  arranged — Gradations  in  English  Society — New  Social  Era  in 
England  dates  from  Reform  Bill  of  1832— The  Decline  of  Dandyism— Essen- 
tially Solid  and  Serious  Character  of  the  Foundation  on  which  English  So- 
ciety rests — How  this  Fact  affects  the  English  Estimate  of  different  Profes- 
sions and  Callings — Social  Position  of  Merchants,  Stock-brokers,  Lawyers, 
Authors,  Artists,  Doctors — Importance  of  State  Recognition  and  Reward  of 
Professional  Men. 

IN  the  constitution  of  English  society  at  the  present  day,  the  three 
rival  elements — the  aristocratic,  the  democratic,  and  the  pluto- 
cratic— are  closely  blended.  The  aristocratic  principle  is  still  para- 
mount, forms  the  foundation  of  our  social  structure,  and  has  been 
strengthened  and  extended  in  its  operation  by  the  plutocratic,  while 
the  democratic  instinct  of  the  race  has  all  the  opportunities  of  asser- 
tion and  gratification  which  it  can  find  in  a  career  conditionally  open 
to  talents. 

The  antagonism  between  the  aristocracy  of  wealth  and  birth  has 
long  been  disappearing.  The  son  of  the  newly-enriched  father  is 
identified  in  education,  social  training,  habits,  prejudices,  feelings, 
with  the  scions  of  the  houses  of  Norman  descent.  At  all  times  there 
has  been  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  birth  to  ally  itself  with  wealth, 
and  it  would  be  found  upon  examination,  that  for  the  greater  part 
of  their  princely  rentals  many  a  noble  English  stock  is  indebted  to 
purely  commercial  sources.  Judicious  matrimonial  alliances  have 
largely  assisted  in  identifying  the  two  principles  of  wealth  and  birth. 
This  has  continued  down  to  the  present  day,  and  the  consequence 
is  that  though  English  society  may  be  divided  into  the  higher  classes, 
the  middle  classes,  the  lower  middle,  and  that  vast  multitude,  which 
for  the  sake  of  convenience  may  be  described  as  the  proletariate,  the 


THE    STRUCTURE    OF  ENGLISH   SOCIETY,  1 

fend  between  the  aristocracy  of  lineage  and  of  revenue  ia  aln     I   it 
an  end.     There  arc  typical  country  gentlemen  in  l!  ■;'  Com- 

mons and  in  society,  but  the  country  interest  is  do  long<  c  the  sv. 
enemy  of  the  urban  interest.     Our  territorial  nobles,  our  squires, 
our  rural  landlords  great  and  small,  have  heroine  commercial  pot 

'  tates;  our  merchant-princes  Lave  heroine  country  gentlemen.     ] 
possession  of  land  is  the  guarantee  of  respectability,  and  the  lovi      i' 
respectability  and  land  is  inveterate  in  our  race. 

The  great  merchant  or  hanker  of  to-day  is  an  English  gentl<  i 

/  of  a  finished  type.  He  is  possibly  a  peer,  and  an  active  partner  in 
a  great  City  firm;  if  he  is  not  a  peer,  the  chances  are  that  he  is  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  is  a  man  of  extensive  cul- 
ture, an  authority  upon  paintings,  or  china,  or  black-letter  hooks; 
upon  some  branch  of  natural  science;  upon  the  politics  of  Europe; 
upon  the  affairs  of  the  world.  Docs  he  then  neglect  his  busini 
By  no  means.  He  has,  indeed,  trustworthy  servants  and  deput 
but  he  consults  personally  with  his  partners,  gentlemen  in  culture 
and  taste  scarcely  inferior,  it  may  be,  to  himself ;  he  goes  into  the 
City  as  punctually  as  his  junior  clerks;  and  when  he  returns  from 
the  City  he  drops  for  a  few  minutes  into  the  most  exclusive  of  We  I  - 
end  clubs.     His  grandfather  would  have  lived  with  his  family  above 

f  the  counting-house,  and  regarded  a  trip  to  Hyde  Park  as  a  summer 
day's  journey.  As  for  the  descendant,  his  town-house  is  in  Belgra 
or  Mayfair,  he  occupies  it  for  little  more  than  six  months  out  of  the 
twelve,  and  during  the  rest  of  the  year  lives  at  his  palace  in  the 
country,  takes  a  keen  interest  in  the  breeding  of  stock,  the  cultiva- 
tion of  soil,  and  the  general  improvement  of  property.  There  is,  in 
fact,  but  one  standard  of  "social  position"  in  England,  and  it  is  • 
which  is  formed  by  a  blending  of  the  plutocratic  and  aristocratic. 
elements.  If  it  is  realized  imperfectly  in  one  generation,  it  will  be 
approximated  to  more  closely  in  the  next,  and  thus  it  will  go  on  till 
the  ideal  is  reached. 

There  is  a  rush  just  now  equally  on  the  part  of  patrician  I     I 
plebeian  parents  to  get  their  sons  into  business,  and  noblemi  D 

I  illustrious  titles  and  boasting  the  most  ancient  descent  eagerly  em- 
brace any  good  opening  in  the  City  which  may  present  itself  for 
their  sons.  It  is  perhaps  the  younger  son  of  an  earl  or  a  duke  who 
sees  you  when  you  call  on  your  broker  to  transact  bu 
be  the  heir  to  a  peerage  himself  who  is  head  partner  in  the  I 
which  supplies  the  middle-class  household  with  tea,  puts  a  ring- 
fence  round  the  park  of  the  Yorkshire  squire,  or  erects  a  trim  con- 
servatory in  one  of  the  villa  gardens  of  suburban  .       M  i 


312  ENGLAND. 

also  be  remarked  that  an  institution  which  is  the  great  object  of 
menace  and  attack  on  the  part  of  the  radical  reformers  of  the  age 
has  greatly  assisted  to  knit  together  the  various  parts,  sections,  and 
interests  of  the  social  system,  and  at  the  same  time  that  it  has  dis- 
persed the  aristocratic  leaven  has  proved  to  be  a  distinctly  popular- 
izing agency.  Primogeniture,  the  bulwark  of  an  hereditary  nobility, 
is  one  of  the  guarantees  of  the  alliance  between  the  upper  and  the 
middle  classes  which  has  contributed  to  give  us  the  social  stability 
that  other  nations  have  lacked.  Imagine  primogeniture  abolished, 
and  the  French  system,  as  a  possible  alternative  to  primogeniture, 
adopted,  an  equal  division  of  property  between  the  various  members 
of  the  family.  The  distinction  between  elder  and  younger  sons  woidd 
disappear.  Most  of  the  sons  of  oiu-  great  landlords  would  have  a 
competence,  and  as  a  probable  consequence  they  would  combine 
together  to  form  an  anti-popular  and  exclusive  caste,  would  inter- 
marry to  a  much  greater  extent  than  at  present,  would  cease  to  go 
forth,  since  the  necessity  would  cease,  into  the  world  to  make  then* 
fortunes,  and  would  erect  a  hard  and  fast  line  of  demarkation  be- 
tween classes. 

If  we  look  at  polite  society  in  England  as  an  entire  system,  we 
shall  find  that  it  differs  in  one  very  important  respect  from  society 
in  certain  other  countries  and  capitals  of  Europe.  It  has  a  nobility, 
I  but  it  has  not  a  nublease.  There  is  no  titular  distinction  between  the 
son  of  the  youngest  son  of  the  greatest  duke  in  the  land  and  the  son 
of  the  commoner  who  has  made  a  fortune  in  commerce.  On  the  one 
hand,  this  absence  of  the  perpetuation  of  nobiliary  titles  of  courtesy 
from  generation  to  generation  divests  English  society  of  much  of 
the  exclusiveness  of  society  on  the  Continent;  on  the  other,  it  exacts 
for  these  titles,  while  they  are  in  existence,  the  most  rigid  and  jeal- 
ous respect.  Personal  precedence  has  been  abolished  in  our  Indian 
dominions;  and  official  precedence  prevails  in  its  stead.  Official  pre- 
cedence is  the  order  of  the  day  in  France  and  Italy.  In  Russia  there 
is  a  strict  system  of  military  and  bureaucratic  precedence ;  in  Austria 
the  system  is  partly  military  and  partly  personal.  In  England  the 
principle  on  which  gradations  of  precedence  are  arranged  is  per- 
sonal, though  in  practice  a  few  exceptions  to  the  rule  may  be  found. 
The  homage  paid  by  society  in  England  to  the  aristocratic  principle 
is  as  genuine  in  spirit,  though  not  so  severe  in  form,  as  it  once  was 
in  Austria — formerly  par  excellence  the  aristocratic  country  of  Europe. 
Here,  within  the  limits  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire,  there  ex- 
isted and  still  exists  a  great  hereditary  noblesse,  the  titles  of  prince, 
count,  and  baron  being  handed  down  in  perpetuity  from  father  to 


THE    STRUCTURE    OF  ENGLISH   SOCIETY.  :\\;\ 

(  both  sons  and  daughters.  Society,  in  the  approved  sense  of  the 
term,  was  thus  a  close  corpora!  ion,  absolutely  unapproachable  bg 
those  who  lacked  in  their  cradle  the  necessary  credentials  of  rank. 
Neither  ability,  nor  wealth,  nor  great  power  and  influence  in  the 
State  was  accepted  as  an  adequate  title  for  promotion  to  the  hi  'hest 
level.  Within  these  sacred  limits  official  rank  of  courst  >  d;  but 
it  was  never  permitted  to  override  roughshod  the  distinction  of  the 
purely  nobiliary  regime.  So  far  has  this  principle  been  carried, 
that  until  lately  it  was  a  recognized  thing  in  Austria  thai  «  7&a  the 
Prime  Minister,  unless  of  sufficient  rank  by  birth,  was  noi  to  be  ad- 
mitted to  certain  select  ceremonies  of  state.  The  Prince  Esterhazy, 
daughter  of  Lady  Jersey,  was  excluded  from  several  privileges  for 
no  other  reason  than  that  her  great-grandfather  was  Mr.  Child,  the 
eminent  banker.  The  principle  which  dictated  this  exclusion,  thi  >ugh 
not  extinct,  is  only  partially  operative  at  the  present  day,  and  if  a 
lady  of  high  rank,  the  wife  of  a  man  who  occupies  the  most  di  lan- 
guished position,  happens  by  the  unequal  marriage  of  i  Qe  of  hef 
ancestors  to  miss  the  proper  number  of  quartering*,  she  may  be 
admitted  to  court,  that  is,  into  the  society  of  the  great  world,  even 
without  special  grace  of  the  Emperor. 

In  English  society,  on  the  other  hand,  the  chief  fundamental  fact 
is  the  absence  of  a  noblesse — a  fact  which  has  its  disadvanl 
well  as  advantages,  and  which  probably  exercises  a  more  marked 
influence  upon  our  national  character  than  has  v.  i   !.,  <  a   noticed. 
The  highest  society  in  Austria  is  perhaps  even  novs  more  a 
to  aristocratic  Austrians  than  the  society  which  most  aearrj  corre- 
sponds to  it  in  England  to  the  aristocratic  English.     It  is,  in  fact, 
a  species  of  family  party  upon  an  extended  yc:ilv     a  magnif 
•  tion  of  the  exclusive  patrician  cliques  and  coteries,  most  of  \\  h 
members  are  bound  together  by  the  tie  not  o]  acquaintai 

and  community  of  tastes  and  sympathies,  but  by  kinship  more  or 
less  remote.  There  is  in  consequence  just  that  absence  of  constraint 
and  reserve  in  the  great  social  world  of  Austria  which  mig  it  be 
expected  when  the  possibility  of  meeting  any  "d  in" 

I  was  out  of  the  question.  In  England,  where  the  antecedents  <>f 
many  of  those  who  mingle  in  the  best  society  are  obscure,  and 
where  the  connections  between  titled  and  untitled  familii  in- 

finite and  invisible  ,  it  is  natural,  and  it  is  right,  that 

considerable  caution  should  be  used.     Hence,  in  a  g 

<  the  proverbial  reserve  of  I-mglishmen.     As  it  is  impi.-   ible  to 
from  the  mere  fact  of  nomenclatu  r  any  given  individua 

or  is  not  the  relative  of  a  peer,  so  there  is  a  tendency  on  I 


314  ENGLAND. 

the  many  aspirants  for  social  position  not,  perhaps,  to  affect  such 
relationship,  hut  certainly  to  affect  an  intimacy  with  highly  placed 
personages.  Comparative  strangers  addressing  each  other  can  never 
feel  completely  sure  of  their  ground,  and  are  apt  to  be  agitated  by 
misgivings  as  to  their  respective  positions.  The  prosperous  mer- 
chant into  whose  family  the  heir  to  a  dukedom  marries,  will  prob- 
ably have  near  relations  who  belong  to  the  lower  order  of  the 
bourgeoisie.  These  social  contrasts  and  strange  juxtapositions  are 
impossible  in  such  a  country  as  Austria,  where,  outside  the  limits 
of  society — using  the  word  in  its  most  exclusive  sense — there  is 
scarcely  any  distinction  between  the  bourgeois  and  his  servant;  just 
as  in  England,  inside  society  there  is  practically  no  distinction  be- 
tween the  men  who  the  day  before  yesterday  were  plebeians,  and  the 
patrician  peer  who  boasts  the  blue  ribbon  of  genealogy — a  clearly 
ascertained  line  of  ancestors  who  took  part  in  the  first  crusades. 
In  England,  the  wife  of  a  great  statesman  takes  her  rank  from  her 
husband — Ubi  Clcdius,  ibi  Clodia.  "Where  he  goes,  there  she  is  in- 
vited. In  Austria,  the  wife  of  the  distinguished  statesman  or  war- 
rior who  lacked  the  natal  qualifications  would  scarcely  feel  aggrieved 
by  receiving  no  invitation  to  enter  the  social  paradise  of  the  elect, 
and  if  admitted  to  it  would  experience  the  discomfort  that  comes 
from  novelty  and  strangeness. 

An  examination  of  the  principles  embodied  in  the  scheme  of 
precedence  by  which  English  society  is  rigidly  regulated  will  show 
two  things — first,  that  though  to  the  uninitiated  it  may  seem  "a 
mighty  maze,"  yet  it  is  not  on  that  account  without  a  very  distinct 
plan;  secondly,  that  it  abounds  in  compensations  to  that  aristocratic 
principle,  and  to  the  representatives  of  that  titular  noblesse,  whose 
claims  to  recognition  English  society,  in  comparison  with  Austrian, 
may  be  thought  to  ignore.  "  Precedence,"  it  is  written  in  the  book 
of  Dod,  "is  not  regulated  by  mere  conventional  arrangements;  it  is 
no  fluctuating  practice  of  fashionable  life,  the  result  of  voluntary 
compacts  in  society;  but,  on  the  contrary,  is  part  and  parcel  of  the 
law  of  England."  "Without  going  into  historical  and  legal  details, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  table  of  precedence  which  is  sometimes 
spoken  of  as  a  jumble  of  incomprehensibilities — a  chaos  of  social 
conundrums,  to  be  answered  by  capricious  solutions,  proceeds  upon 
a  distinct  theory,  and  that  it  is  perfectly  logical  in  all  its  enact- 
ments. Its  theory  is  an  aristocratic  theory — that  of  personal  rank; 
its  logic  is  shown  in  the  consistent  application  of  the  aristocratic 
principle. 

The  representative  of  the  principle  of  an  hereditary  monarchy, 


THE    STRUCTURE    OF   ENGLISH  SOCIETY.  818 

the  Sovereign  and  the  members  of  the  Royal  Family,  represent  the 
apex  of  our  social  as  of  our  political  constitution.     The  Archbishop 

of  Canterbury  follows  next.  After  the  Primate  of  ;ill  England  comes 
the  Lord  Chancellor,  as  keeper  of  the  Queen's  conscience,  and  then 
the  Archbishop  of  York.  The  position  which  the  Lord  Chancellor 
occupies,  midway  between  the  two  Primates,  is  a  compromise  effe<  I  1 
subsequently  to  the  time  when  the  Chancellor  first  ceased  to  be  a 
cleric.  Next  in  the  scale  of  dignity  are  some  half-dozen  eminent 
personages,  all  of  them  holding,  it  is  true,  high  offices  of  Btate,  but 
all  of  them  also  eligible  in  the  first  place  to  their  offices  in  virtu  i  oi 
then-  wealth  and  personal  rank.  Thus  the  Lord  High  Treasurer, 
when  there  is  any  peer  sufficiently  illustrious  for  the  post,  Bucceeds 
the  Archbishops;  but,  to  quote  again  from  Dod,  "the  modern  prac- 
tice is  to  appoint  certain  commissioners  for  the  performance  of  the 
duties  of  this  office,  who  are  usually  called  'Lords  of  the  Treasury,' 
but  who  have  no  special  rank  in  right  of  their  offices."  Similarly,  the 
Lord  President  of*  the  Council,  the  Lord  Privy  Seal,  the  Lord  (  freat 
Chamberlain,  the  Lord  High  Constable,  the  Earl  Marshal,  the  Lord 
Steward  of  the  Household,  the  Lord  Chamberlain  of  the  Household, 
take  precedence  of*  the  dukes  of  England,  provided  they  are  in  each 
case  dukes  themselves,  in  virtue  of  their  offices.  If  they  are  not 
dukes,  then  they  only  take  their  place  at  the  head  of  their  brother 
peers  of  the  same  degree.  With  the  exception  of  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor and  the  Archbishops,  who  are  the  heads  of  the  learned  pro- 
fessions, and  who  are  closely  identified  with  the  most  essential  of 
the  spiritual  and  temporal  functions  of  the  Sovereign,  the  table  of 
English  precedence  is  one  of  purely  personal  precedence  through- 
out; in  other  words,  office  only  intensities  rank,  and  in  a  variety  of 
instances  rank  is  the  indispensable  qualification  of  office. 

The  dukes  are  followed  by  the  eldest  sons  of  the  dukes  royal,  and 

■  we  then  come  to  the  stratum  of  the  marquisate.  Here  again  there 
is  the  same  consideration  given  to  official  when  combined  with  per- 
sonal rank.  If  the  Lord  Great  Chamberlain,  the  Earl  Marshal,  the 
Lord  Steward,  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  fail  to  be  dukes,  and  are 
marquises,  then,  and  only  then,  they  have  their  place  at  the  lead  of 

,  marquises.  Similarly,  if  they  are  earls,  viscounts,  or  barons,  they 
have  precedence  of  the  earls,  viscounts,  or  barons.  Alter  the  mar- 
quises, we  have  dukes'  eldest  sons,  then  the  earls,  then  the  eldest 
sons  of  marquises,  then  the  younger  sons  of  dukes.  Then  come 
viscounts,  followed  by  the  eldest  sons  of  earls  and  the  younger  sons 
of  marquises;  then  bishops  and  barons.  If  a  baron  happens  to  be 
a  Secretary  of  State,  he  is  exalted  over  the  rest  of  his  order;  but  a 


316  ENGLAND. 

Secretaryship  of  State  does  not  entitle  the  holder  of  any  superior 
rank  to  any  kind  of  precedence. 

When  one  descends  to  the  level  regions  of  the  commonalty,  there 
is  comparatively  little  that  calls  for  notice.  The  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons  is  the  first  "  commoner  "  in  England.  Secre- 
taries of  State  take  precedence  of  the  eldest  sons  of  viscounts,  the 
younger  sons  of  earls,  the  eldest  sons  of  barons;  and  this  constitutes 
one  of  the  very  few  excej^tions  to  the  principle  of  personal  dignity. 
Privy  Councilors — the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  among  them — 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster,  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of 
England,  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  the  Com- 
mon Pleas,  the  Lord  Chief  Baron,  and  all  other  judges,  have  a  place 
assigned  to  them  before  baronets,  as  also,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
the  younger  sons  of  viscounts  and  the  younger  sons  of  barons.  Then 
follow  the  multitude  of  knights  innumerable,  while  professional  men 
of  all  branches  bring  up  the  rear.  Among  the  representatives  of  the 
faculties,  clergymen  have  the  first  place;  and  the  great  social  griev- 
ance of  the  army  in  England  is  that  its  most  distinguished  mem- 
bers,  unless  they  possess  a  title,  or  have  been  decorated  with  a  high 
order,  are  without  any  definite  position.  Exceptions  to  these  social 
rules  there  of  course  are,  but  they  are  only  possible  if  the  members 
of  the  company  in  which  they  are  made  are  willing  that  they  should 
be  instituted;  and  at  an  ordinary  London  dinner-table  the  adherence 
to  them  is  very  rigid  indeed.  Sometimes  they  conflict  in  a  rather 
ludicrous  manner,  and  the  case  is  not  inconceivable  in  which,  if  each 
of  three  individuals  insisted  on  his  legal  precedence,  it  would  be 
doubtful  whether  any  one  of  them  could  ever  leave  the  room.  Im- 
agine that  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons,  a  baron,  and  the 
son  of  a  duke  or  marquis  were  placed  in  the  same  apartment,  and 
were  requested  to  leave  it  in  the  order  of  dignity.  The  Speaker, 
in  point  of  rank,  is  before  all  commoners,  and  legally  the  son  of  a 
duke  or  marquis  is  only  a  commoner;  but  the  baron  is  before  the 
Speaker,  and  the  clucal  scion  before  the  baron.  The  social  conun- 
drum which  thus  presents  itself  may  safely  be  left  to  rare  experience 
to  decide. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  certain  Duke  of  Norfolk,  who  was  anxious 
to  give  a  great  entertainment  to  all  his  kinsfolk.  It  was  found  that 
,  his  blood  relations  comprised  upwards  of  500  persons  of  both  sexes, 
of  whom  one  was  earning  a  livelihood  as  keeper  of  a  toll-bar  on  a 
turnpike  road.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  idea  of  the  family  re- 
union was  abandoned,  because  its  complete  execution  was  manifestly 
impracticable.     This  is  one  of  the  illustrations  of  what  is  always 


THE    STRUCTURE    OF  ENGLISH   SOCIETY.  \\\~ 

possible  in  a  country  where,  aa  in  En  jland,  a  ndbl 
It  is,  however,  certain  thai  If  the  humbles!  of  the  ducal  I  1 

abandoned  his  lowly  vocation,  and  had  Buddenbj  ri  ,.  n  to  di  itinction, 
be  might  have  found  his  way  into  much  the  Bame  boi 
fected  by  the  bead  of  his  house,  and  he  would  Lave  dom  I  be- 

cause he  was  r  mnected  with  a  duke,  but   i  had 

established  a  title  to  consideration 

Subject  to  certain  conditions,  the  parvenu  in  England  may  associ- 
ate with  peers,  even  though  he  feels  some  constraint  in  then    | 
ence,  while  the  son  of  the  parvenu  would  be  the  equal  of  |  nay, 

very  possibly  be  a  peer  himself.     This  free  it    of  ■-         I 

promotion  is  responsible  for  a  large  amount  of  petty  social  .; 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  A.  are  a  couple  whose  place  by  birth  is  a  table 

one  in  the  groat  middle  class.     But  they  have  gradually  risen  supe- 
rior to  it,  and  without  legal  rank  have  acquired  a  valuable  ]>.  escript- 
ive  rank  in  what  is  called  "society"  par  excellence.     The  husband 
has  inherited  a  fortune,  or  has  made  his  mark  in  politics,  or  lias 
possibly  distinguished  himself  in  some  other  way:  the  wife  is  a  ;••  > - 
fectly  bred   lady,   conspicuous  by  her   accomplishm 
They  are,  therefore,   made  welcome  in  the  most  select   drawing- 
rooms,  and  have  a  visiting  list  with  which  a  du  might    1 
tied.     But  there  is  no  rose  without  its  thorn,  and  the  social  triumphs 
of  this  agreeable  pair  have  aroused  the  envy  of  not  house! 
which  in  point  of  birth  and  worldly  circumstance  are  fully  I 
equals.     The  A.'s  decline  the  invitations  which  they  receive  from 
these  worthy  persons,  and  the  worthy  persons  accordingly  declare 
that  the  A.'s  are  offensively  elated  by  their  promotion.    On  the  other 
hand,  the  A.'s  have  a  considerable  amount  of  reason  on  their  side; 
they  are  under  no  kind  of  antecedent  obligation  to  visit  houses  v.  hi.  h 
are  unacceptable  to  them,  they  have  really  gained  a  degree  of  con- 
sideration in  more  distinguished  quarters,  with  which  there  if 
harm  in  their  being,  and  with  which  it  would  be 
were  not,  gratified.     This  fact  is  not  understood  in  th  >n  which 
lies  outside  their  world,  and  if  they  were  to  enter  l:  they 
would  find  themselves  in  a  thoroughly  falsi;  and  therefore  moi 
less  disagreeable  position. 

The  era  of  the  enlargement  of  English  society  dale-;  from  the 
Reform  Bill  of  1832,  and  if  it  has  brought  with  it  some  contradic- 
tions, anomalies,  and  inconveniences,  it  has  also  bei  d  instrum 

in  the  accomplishment  of  great  and  undoubted  g L     It  ha 

tuted,  in  a  v<  ry  large  degree,  the  prestige  of  achi< 
prestige  of  position.     The  mere  men  of  i 


313  ENGLAND. 

and  exquisites,  the  glory  of  whose  life  was  indolence,  and  who  looked 
upon  any  thing  in  the  way  of  occupation  as  a  disgrace,  have  gone 
out  of  date  never  to  return.  Both  Brummell  and  D'Orsay,  the  lat- 
ter especially,  concealed  sterling  equalities  beneath  the  polished 
affectation  of  their  exterior,  but  the  kind  of  fame  which  each  of 
these  acquired  in  his  epoch  would  be  an  anachronism  and  impos- 
sibility now.  Before  the  eventful  year  1832,  there  existed  a  society 
in  England  very  like  the  old  exclusive  society  of  Vienna.  The  chief 
and  indeed  almost  only  road  to  it  lay  through  jjolitics,  and  politics 
were  for  the  most  part  a  rigidly  aristocratic  profession.  Occasion- 
ally men  of  the  people  made  their  way  out  of  the  crowd,  and  be- 
came personages  in  and  out  of  the  House  of  Commons;  but  most  of 
the  places  under  Government  were  in  the  hands  of  the  great  fami- 
lies, as  also  were  the  close  boroughs,  and  the  tendency  was  to  fill 
each  from  among  the  young  men  of  birth  and  fashion.  The  Reform 
Bill  admitted  an  entirely  new  element  into  political  life,  and  threw 
open  the  whole  of  the  political  area.  A  host  of  applicants  for  Par- 
liamentary position  at  once  came  forward,  and  as  a  consequence  the 
social  citadel  was  carried  by  persons  who  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  purely  aristocratic  section  which  had  hitherto  been  paramount. 
The  patrician  occupants  of  the  captured  stronghold,  if  they  were 
somewhat  taken  aback  by  the  blow  which  had  been  dealt  them,  ac- 
cepted the  situation  and  decided  upon  their  future  tactics  with  equal 
wisdom  and  promptitude.  If  the  new-comers  were  to  be  success- 
fully competed  with,  they  saw  that  they  must  compete  with  them 
on  the  new  ground,  and  must  assert  their  power  as  the  scions  of  no 
faineant  aristocracy.  The  impulse  given  to  the  whole  mass  of  the 
patriciate  was  immense,  and  the  sum  of  the  new-born  or  newly-dis- 
played energies  as  surprising  as  it  was  satisfactory.  The  man  of 
pleasure  ceased  to  be  the  type  to  which  it  was  expected,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  that  all  those  born  in  the  purple  should  conform. 

The  activity  thus  communicated  directed  itself  into  an  infinite 
number  of  channels,  and  it  has  continued  operative  ever  since.  Our 
aristocrats  of  to-day  are  at  least  fired  by  a  robust  ambition.  Many 
of  them  take  up  statesmanship  as  the  business  of  their  lives,  and 
work  at  its  routine  duties  as  if  it  were  necessary  to  the  support  of 
existence.  Those  whose  tastes  do  not  incline  them  in  the  direction 
of  the  senate,  write  books,  paint  pictures,  or  carve  statues.  Per- 
haps, even  probably,  they  are  of  a  theatrical  turn,  and  subsidize  a 
theater,  or  even  manage  a  company.  They  go  into  business,  or  they 
dedicate  then-  existence  to  agricultural  enterprise.  At  least  they  do 
something.     Society,  in  fact,  has  bidden  adieu  to  its  ideal  of  gilded 


THE    STRUCTURE    OF  ENGLISH    SOCIETY. 

and  inglorious  ease,  and  in  strict  conformity  with  th< 
new  departure,  selects  its  proiiges  and  Favorites  upon  a  n. m  prin- 
ciple.    The  question  asked  about  any  new  aspirant  to  iis  fret  d 
not  only,  who  is  he?  or  how  much  has  he  a  year?  but,  in  addition, 
what  has  he  done?  and  what  can  he  do?     The  heroes  and  1  i •  >i i-^  •  >t' 
society  are  not  handsome  young  men,  who  can  do  nothing  n 
than  dress  well,  or  dance  well.     They  are  Beldom  even  those  wh 
fame  is  limited  to  the  hunting-held  or  the  battue.     They  are  men 
who  have  striven  to  solve  the  secret  of  the  ice-bound  pole,  who  hi 
tramped  right  across  the  arid  sands  of  a  strange  continent,  v, 
have  scaled  heights  previously  deemed  inaccessible,  who  have  writ- 
ten clever  books,  painted  great  pictures,  done  great  deeds,  in  one 
shape  or  other.     It  is  surely  a  considerable  social  advance  to  bi 
substituted  for  the  exquisites  of  a  bygone  period,  as  ideals  of  life  for 
the  rising  generation,  men  who  have  followed  in  the  track  of  Xeno- 
phon,  or  who  have  been  the  pioneers  of  civilization  on  a  continent. 

Thus  it  may  be  fairly  inferred  that  whatever  its  levities  and  friv- 
olities, the  foundation  on  which  English  society  rests  is  essentially 
serious,  the  result  of  the  traditional  and  pre-eminently  English  habit 
of  taking  grave  and  earnest  views  of  life.  Religion  is  not  now  spoken 
of ;  what  is  meant  is,  that  pure  enjoyment  is  not  the  idea  of  t ' 
ical  Englishman  in  whatever  class.  He  takes  his  pleasure 
indeed,  and  with  gusto,  if  he  finds  them  in  his  path.  Occasionally 
he  may  make  the  mistake  of  forsaking  the  true  path  of  his  can 
and  following  the  phantom  of  pleasure  till  it  lands  him  in  disaster. 
These  are  our  failures.  The  ordinary  Englishman  has  ambitions, 
social  and  professional,  and  he  subordinates  all  other  things  to  them. 
He  is  bent  upon  improving  his  position,  or  immortalizing  his  name. 
His  dominant  motive  is  the  desire  to  rise,  or  the  resolution  to  do  t  i 
the  utmost  his  duty  in  the  sphere  of  life  in  which  his  lot  has  been 
cast.  The  plan  of  existence,  thus  regarded  as  the  great  and  only 
opportunity  for  the  accomplishment  of  a  definite  work,  acquires  an 
energizing  solemnity.  The  Englishman  may  stumble  sometimea, 
but  after  the  fall  he  picks  himself  up  and  pushes  on  to  the  goal 

A  hundred  illustrations  might  be  given  of  the  de'v  lopm 
this  inborn  national  tendency  in  the  march  of  an  En)  1  ra- 

tion from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.     At  school  the  boy  who  does  noth- 
ing has  neither  popularity  nor  respect.     He  is  without  any  recog- 
nized status  in  the  little  world  which  is  the  microco  m  i 
world  to  which  he  will  be  presently  introduced.      !!<•  may  s! 
his  studies;  he  may  excel  in  the  cricket-ground  or  on  the  i  iver 
one  essential  condition  is,  he  must  do  some  thing  if  he  • 


320  ENGLAND. 

any  rank  or  consideration  among  his  equals  and  contemporaries. 
This  destiny  pursues  him  throughout.  At  college  the  mere  loafer  is 
a  nonentity;  the  reading  man  or  the  athlete  is  a  personage.  In  the 
army  no  young  officer  ever  yet  made  a  reputation  which  one  of  his 
compeers  envied  by  elegant  dawdling.  He  has  devoted  himself  to 
professional  studies,  and  secured  a  place  in  the  ranks  of  coming 
men.  Or  he  has  been  of  a  less  studious  turn,  and  knows  more  of 
the  stud-book  and  the  racing  calendar  than  of  Jomini  or  Hamley. 
But  he  has  established  his  reputation  in  the  hunting-field  or  on  the 
steeple-chase  course,  and  he  has  extended  or  maintained  the  repu- 
tation of  his  regiment.  It  is  the  same  whatever  the  pastime  that  he 
lias  made  the  business  of  his  life;  his  character  will  be  assessed 
by  the  degree,  of  earnestness  and  success  with  which  he  has  taken 
it  up. 

The  degrees  of  esteem  allotted  to  the  different  English  profes- 
sions are  exactly  what  might  be  expected  in  a  society  organized 
upon  such  a  basis  and  conscious  of  such  aims.  Roughly  it  may  be 
said  professions  in  England  are  valued  according  to  their  stability, 
their  remunerativeness,  their  influence  and  their  recognition  by  the 
State.  These  conditions  may  partially  explain  the  difference  which 
English  society  draws  between  the  callings  of  the  merchant  and  the 
stock -broker.  Stock-brokers  make  immense  fortunes;  but  there  at- 
taches to  them  a  suspicion  of  precariousness  infinitely  in  excess  of 
that  which,  in  some  degree  or  other,  necessarily  attaches  to  all  for- 
tunes accumulated  in  commerce  or  trade.  The  merchant  represents 
an  interest  which  is  almost  deserving  of  a  place  among  the  estates  of 
the  realm,  and  with  the  development  of  which  the  prosperity  and 
prestige  of  England  are  bound  up.  His  house  of  business  is  prac- 
tically a  public  institution,  and  the  speculative  element — the  fluctua- 
tion of  prices  and  the  uncertainty  of  markets— enters  as  little  as  pos- 
sible into  it.  Merchants  have  from  time  immemorial  been  the  friends 
and  supporters  of  monarchs — have  taken  their  place  in  the  popular 
chamber  of  the  legislature,  have  been  elevated  to  distinguished  sta- 
tions among  the  titular  aristocracy  of  the  land.  We  have  had  not 
only  our  merchant-princes,  but  our  merchant-peers  and  merchant- 
statesmen.  The  calling  has  been  recognized  in  our  social  hierarchy 
for  centuries,  and  if  not  exactly  a  liberal,  is  an  eminently  respectable 
and  dignified  profession.  Nor  is  the  merchant,  as  a  rule,  so  much 
absorbed  in  the  affairs  of  his  own  business  as  to  be  unable  to  devote 
as  much  time  as  is  necessary  to  the  pursuits  of  society  and  the  af- 
fairs of  the  country.  His  operations  run  in  a  comparatively  equal 
and  tranquil  channel,  and  to  hint  that  he  lives  in  an  atmosphere  of 


THE    STRUCTURE    OF  ENGLISH  /  V.  1 

feverish  excitement  is  equivalent  I  i  insinuai  doubt  of  bis  sol- 

vency.    It  is  different  with  the  brok<  r,  wh  < 

so  sudden  that  it  canned  yel    be  loi  ired     wh(     i 

wealth,  though  great,  lias  the  garish  ho     of  Luck,  and  the 

ited  with  which  may  dissolve  themselves  at  anj  . 

thin  air,  like  Aladdin's  palace,  and  who  himself  is  popularly  sup- 
posed to  be  more  or  less  on  the  tenter-hooks  of  exp  ctation  a  I 
anxiety  from  morning  to  night  The  merchant  drives  to  his  pi 
of  business  in  a  family  brougham  or  barouche;  the  Btock-bro] 
drives  to  the  station,  where  he  takes  the  morning  express  to  t  i 
City,  in  a  smart  dog-cart,  with  a  high-stepping  horse  between  tho 
shafts,  and  a  very  knowing-looking  groom  at  his  side. 

Such,  at  least,  is  the  conception  formed  by  the  public  of  the  two 
men  of  business,  and  it  indicates  not  incorrectly  the  correspond 
view  of  English  society.     Tho  British  merchant,  as  has  bet  n  said, 
is  very  probably  a  member  of  Parliament;  the  instances  in  which 
stock-brokers  are  members  of  Parliament  at  the  present  day  might 
be  counted  as  something  less  than  the  fingers  of  one  hand.     Tho 
life  of  the  ideal  stock-broker  is  one  of  display;  that  of  the  ideal  mer- 
chant, one  of  dignified  grandeur  or  opulent  comfort     V<  I  of 
a  certain  amount  of  education,  often  acquired  at  a  public  school, 
sometimes  both  at  Eton  and  Oxford,  the  stock-broker  of  the  period 
has  decided  social  aspirations.     Be  makes  his  mon           ly,  and 
spends  it  lightly  in  procuring   all  tho   luxuries   of  existence.      Ho 
marries  a  handsome  wife,  sets  up  a  show;    establishment,  lays  in 
a  stock  of  choice  wines,  hires  a  French  cook;  he  has  can          and 
horses,  a  box  at  the  opera,  stalls  at  theaters  and  concerts  innumer- 
able.    He  belongs  to  one  or  two  good  though  not  always  first-rate 
clubs.     He  has  acquaintances  in  the  highest  circles,  and  congratu- 
lates himself  on  being  in  society.     But  the  blissful  experience  is  uot 
one  in  which  his  wife  shares.     She  has  to  be  content  with  all  the  talk, 
stones,  and  scandal  of  BOci   ty  which   she   h                tailed  at  h<  r  b 
band's  table  by  the  young  guardsmen  and  other  patrician  gue 
readily  accept  the  invitations  to  a  house  where  cook  and  cellar  are 
both  excellent,  where  the  hostess  and  such  other  ladies  as  may  be  p 
ent  are  pretty  or  attractive.     As  a  consequence  of  this,  tin  re  i 
pious  stream  of  male  visitors  at  the  residence  of  the  fortunat 
tor  in  scrip  and  shares,  wl.                  I  and  i              '  the  housi 
occupied  in  the  City.     Perhapsan  uncharitable  world  b 
at  any  rate,  the  glitter  and  show  of  the  m            cquire  a  cert 
of  Bohemianism,  bet                  ;h  and  the  animating  spirit  < 
society  the  only  sympathy  that  <          isofapurel;                  i  kind. 

21 


322  ENGLAND. 

Let  us  continue  to  apply  the  test  which  has  been  indicated  to 
other  departments  of  English  professional  life.  We  live  in  an  age 
whose  boast  it  is  that  it  can  appreciate  merit  or  capacity  of  any  kind. 
Artists  and  actors,  poets  and  painters,  are  the  much-courted  guests 
of  the  wealthiest  and  the  noblest  in  the  land — to  be  met  with  at  their 
dinner-tables,  in  their  reception-rooms,  and  in  their  counting-houses. 
To  all  ajypearance,  the  fusion  between  the  aristocracy  of  birth,  wealth, 
and  intellect  is  complete,  and  the  reju'esentatives  of  each  appear  to 
meet  on  a  footing  of  the  most  perfect  and  absolute  equality.  Still 
the  notion  prevails  that  the  admission,  let  us  say,  of  the  painter  into 
society  is  an  act  of  condescension  on  society's  part,  none  the  less 
real  because  the  condescension  is  ostentatiously  concealed.  Nor 
does  the  fact  that  artists  occasionally  not  only  amass  large  fortunes, 
but  contract  illustrious  matrimonial  alliances,  militate  asfainst  the 
view.  It  is  only  possible  where  an  entire  class  is  concerned  to  speak 
generally,  and  to  this,  as  to  every  other  rule,  there  are  exceptions. 
Why  should  the  rule — always  assuming  that  it  is  a  rule — exist,  and 
what  are  the  explanations  of  it  ?  As  regards  painters,  there  is  this 
to  be  borne  in  mind:  their  calling  is  a  noble  one;  but  in  view  of  the 
genius  of  English  society,  it  labors  under  certain  disadvantages.  A 
vague  and  unreasoning  prejudice  still  exists  against  the  profession 
of  the  artist.  The  keen-scented,  eminently  decorous  British  public 
perceives  a  certain  aroma  of  social  and  moral  laxity  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  studio,  a  kind  of  blended  perfume  of  periodical  impe- 
cuniosity  and  much  tobacco-smoke.  This  laxity,  moreover,  is  to  a 
great  extent  a  tradition  of  art,  which  artists  themselves  do  not  a  little 
to  perpetuate.  They  are,  or  they  affect  to  be,  for  the  most  part  a 
simple-minded,  demonstrative,  impulsive,  eccentric,  vagabond  race, 
even  as  Thackeray  has  drawn  them  in  his  novels.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  many,  perhaps  most  of  them,  are  the  reverse  of  this — shrewd, 
hard-headed  men  of  business,  with  as  clear  a  conception  as  the  most 
acute  trader  of  the  value  of  twenty  shillings.  But  social  verdicts 
are  based  for  the  most  part  on  general  impressions;  and  the  popular 
view  of  the  painter — speaking  now,  as  always,  of  the  guild,  not  of  the 
individual  member  of  it — is  that  the  calling  which  he  elects  to  follow 
lacks  definitiveness  of  status,  and  that  it  is  not  calculated  to  promote 
those  serious,  methodical  habits  which  form  an  integral  part  of  the 
foundation  of  English  society. 

If  this  sentiment  were  to  be  exhaustively  analyzed,  it  would  be 
found  that  there  entered  into  it  considerations  which  apply  to  other 
professions.  Attorneys  or  solicitors,  general  practitioners,  and  even 
illustrious  physicians  in  the  daily  intercourse  of  society  labor  under 


THE    STRUCTURE    OF  ENGLISH   SO- 

nearly  the  same  disadvantages  as  artiste.  II  isthi  refore  Datura]  and 
logical  to  ask  whi it  is  the  social  differentia  of  this  group  of  profes- 
sional men?  It  is  to  be  found,  unless  we  greatly  mistake,  in  the 
fact  thai  they  are  each  of  them  in  the  habil  oi  receivi  pay- 

ments direct  from  those  with  whom  they  consori  nominally  on  a 
footing  of  social  equality.     All  professional  men  make  their  liveli- 
hood out  of  the  public  in  some  shape  or  other.     Tt  ig  is 
that  some  of  them  receive  the  money  of  the  public  through  an  a 
or  middleman,  and  that  others  do  not.     A  barrister  has  no  imme- 
diate pecuniary  dealings  with  Ids  client.     An  author  has  no  im- 
mediate pecuniary  dealings  with  those  who  read  his  books  or  arti- 
cles.    A  beneficed  clergyman  is  independent  of  his  con          ition  for 
his  income.     Artists,  attorneys,  surgeons,  dentists,  physicians,  are 
paid  by  fee,  or  they  send  in  their  account  and  receive     or  at    I 
look  for — a  check  in  settlement.     But  this  is  exactly  what  a  tail 
wine  merchant,  a  butcher,  a  grocer,  or  any  other  retail  dealer  does. 
Thus  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  whatever  the  social  disadvan- 
tage at  which  artists,  attorneys,  and  doctors  may  find  themselves,  it 
arises  from  precisely  the  same  cause  as  that  which  exists  in  the 
of  persons  wdio  derive  their  income  from  nothing  that  can  be  called 
a  liberal  or  a  learned  trade. 

To  pass  on  to  two  of  the  conditions  which,  at  the  outset  of  this 
argument,  were  loosely  enumerated  as  tests  of  professional  dignity, 
The  sphere  of  the  influence  exercised  by  aria  by  actors  and 

musicians,  is  necessarily  restricted  within  comparatively  narrow  lim- 
its.    Neither  great  paintings,  nor  good  acting,  nor  musical  ma 
pieces  exercise  a  very  appreciable  power  on  our  every-daj  life,  and 
the  conduct  and  current  of  affairs.     A  fine  picture  makes  a  stir  in 
the  artistic  world;  but  it  does  not  mold  the  thought 
the  aspirations,  or  inspire  the  mind  of  the  world  outside.     1 
lence  in  the  performance  of  a  leading  character  in  a  clever  play  is 
the  theme  of  much  conversation  in  society;  but   it  is  impossible  to 
say  that  influence  attaches  to  the  merit  thus  displayed.     The  senti- 
ments to  which  the  artist  gives  expression  on  the  stage  may  produce 
a  deep  result,  and  have  before  aow  given  an  impulse  to  i 
which  have  almost  culminated  in  revolutions.      In  the  same  way,  the 
language  with  which  the  singer  accompanies  the  melod  con- 

vey the  most  profound,  the  most  tragic  effects    Bui  in  each  of  these 
cases  it  is  the  author,  the  dramatist,  or  the  p  »ei  who  speaks;  and 
the  actor  or  the  vocalist  is,  so  far  as  the  sentiment  which  he  , 
tributes  his  share,  but  only  his  share,  to  eliciting,  little  m 
the  organ  which  the  soul  of  lit.  rain;. ■  inspires,  and  through  which 


324  ENGLAND. 

it  speaks.  In  a  scarcely  less  degree  it  may  be  predicated  of  the  pro- 
fessions of  the  attorney  and  the  doctor,  that  they  are  without  those 
opportunities  of  moving  the  mind  of  the  thinking  public  in  any 
given  direction.  A  physician,  who  is  a  great  authority  in  his  con- 
sulting-room, acquires  a  considerable  position;  and  from  the  pedes- 
tal of  that  position  he  may  speak  with  the  certainty  of  being  listened 
to  on  many  non-professional  subjects.  But  he  has  not  gained  this 
authority  as  doctor.  An  attorney,  again,  may  be  an  election  agent, 
and  thus  affect  the  destiny  of  parties  in  the  State.  But  this  branch 
of  the  jDrofession  is  only  a  rare  and  accidental  development  of  his 
calling.  The  more  closely  the  matter  is  looked  at,  the  more  appar- 
ent does  it  become  that  none  of  the  professional  classes— as  profes- 
sional classes — can  be  said  to  have  the  same  power  of  appealing  to 
the  intellect  and  the  moral  convictions  which  supply  rules  for  the 
guidance  of  every-day  life,  and  of  coloring  the  views  of  the  people  on 
religious  or  political  matters,  as  the  writer,  the  clergyman,  the  bar- 
rister who  takes  a  prominent  place  in  his  profession.  The  barrister 
who  practices  in  court,  much  more  the  judge  who  sits  on  the  bench, 
materially  and  perceptibly  assists  in  the  manufacture,  modeling, 
and  remodeling  of  the  public  law,  which  is  a  distinct  department  of 
public  ethics.  The  author  assists  his  readers,  sensibly  or  insensibly, 
in  their  verdicts  on  public  men  and  public  questions — in  their  for- 
mation of  those  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  whose  conscious  or  un- 
conscious influence  is  the  good  or  evil  genius  of  their  mortal  exist- 
ence. Of  the  clergyman — the  preacher — there  is  no  need  to  speak. 
We  have  said  that  the  esteem  in  which  society  holds  these  differ- 
ent orders  of  professional  laborers  is  closely  proportioned  to  the 
extent  and  character  of  then-  influence  on  the  public  mind.  We 
may  go  farther,  and  say  that  the  State  in  the  recognition  of  their 
services  judges  them  by  the  same  standard.  Those  who  rise  to  the 
highest  titular  rank  by  their  own  efforts,  when  they  are  not  chosen 
on  the  ground  of  convenient  political  ability  or  party  service,  or  im- 
mense wealth  expended  in  a  cause  of  which  the  Government  of  the 
day  approves,  or  of  brilliant  exploits  on  the  sea  and  on  the  field — 
exploits  which  decide  the  fate  of  nations — are  selected  from  some 
one  or  other  of  the  classes  that  we  have  just  been  considering. 
Artists  are  occasionally  advanced  to  the  honor  of  knighthood  or 
baronetcy;  so  are  doctors;  and  such  fortune  sometimes  may  come 
to  attorneys.  But,  unlike  the  barrister,  no  attorney  can  be  said  to 
carry  the  wig  of  the  chancellor,  or  the  robe  of  the  peer,  in  his  bag. 
Has  the  coronet  which  the  distinguished  author  may  bequeath  to 
his  children  ever  been  placed  upon  the  painter's  head  ?     Can  iEscu- 


THE    STRUCTURE    OF  ENGLISH  SOCIETY,  826 

lapius  himself,  in  his  most  Banguine  momenta,  anticipate  any  dignity 
analogous  to  the  bishop's  miter,  which  every  clergyman  may  con- 
aider  he  potentially  packs  up  in  the  portmanteau  thai  be  takes  with 
him  when  he  leaves  home  to  do  duty  for  a  friend,  and  possibly  to 
preach  before  a  royal  or  illustrious  personage?  No  d  »ubt,  it  may 
be  said  with  truth  that  in  these  days  representative  memb  i 
professions  consort  together,  and  arc  treated  in  society  on  a  footing 
of  perfect  equality;  but  we  have  attempted  here  to  go  a  Little  tx  - 
neath  the  surface,  and  to  hazard  a  possible  explanation  of  what  are 
perhaps  foolish  prejudices  and  superstitions. 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

SOCIETY    AND     POLITICS. 

Gradual  Diminution  of  Social  Influences  upon  Politics— The  Aristocratic  Prin- 
ciple still  a  powerful  one — English  System  of  Statesmanship  essentially 
Aristocratic — Statesmanship  in  Families  favorable  to  this  Tendency — Place 
of  the  Country  House  in  our  Political  System — Clubs:  their  General  Aspect 
and  Political  Significance — Peculiar  Excellencies  of  the  Conservative  Club 
System — Explanations  of  this — Social  Structure  of  Conservative  Party — 
Political  Salons:  their  Decline,  and  Reasons  for  this  Decline — Lady  Pal- 
merston's  Drawing-room — Prospects  of  the  Salon. 

IT  is  the  fashion  to  say  that,  since  the  English  people  have  been 
taken  into  partnership  in  the  work  of  national  government  by 
the  Reform  Acts  of  1832  and  1867,  and  we  have  fairly  entered  upon 
the  broad  road  which  is  thought  to  lead  to  pure  democracy,  the  in- 
fluence of  rank  and  fashion,  in  other  words,  of  what  is  called  "  soci- 
ety," upon  politics  has  ceased  to  exist.  Before  1832,  the  history  of 
English  politics  was  largely  identical  with  the  history  of  English 
society.  It  is  within  the  last  half  century  that  the  members  of  the 
great  English  families  have  perceived  that  they  can  no  longer,  by 
judicious  alliances,  keep  the  game  of  government  to  themselves.  A 
hundred  years  ago,  Burke  was  indebted  for  his  entrance  to  Parlia- 
ment to  Lord  Rockingham,  who,  seeing  that  his  administration  was, 
as  Charles  Townshend  puts  it,  "mere  lutestring:  pretty  summer 
wear,  but  quite  unfit  for  winter,"  made  the  young  Irishman — then 
chiefly  known,  as  Macaulay  reminds  us,  "  by  a  little  treatise  in  which 
the  style  and  reasoning  of  Bolingbroke  were  mimicked  with  exqui- 
site skill" — his  private  secretary.  Pitt,  Chatham's  son  though  he 
was,  commenced  his  parliamentary  career  under  the  segis  of  a  great 
governing  house,  the  Lowthers.  Canning  was  a  connection  and 
protege  of  the  Duke  of  Portland.  "  One  of  the  most  curious  feat- 
ures," remarks  a  writer  in  Blackwood's  Magazine*  "  of  this  obsolete 
day  is  the  manner  in  which  the  countiw  was  disposed  of.  No  game 
of  whist  in  one  of  the  lordly  clubs  of  St.  James's  Square  was  ever 

*  No.  cccl.,  p.  754. 


SOCIETY  AND    POLITICS. 

more  exclusively  played.     It  was  simply  a  question  whel         Eu 
Grace  of  Bedford  would  be  content  with  a  quarter  or  half  a  cabin 
or  whether  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham  would  be  satisfied  with  two- 
fifths,  or  the  Karl  of  Shelburne  should  have  all  or  should  share  the 
power  with  the  Duke  of  Portland.     In  all  t1  ingsandl 

rowings  we  never  hear  the  name  of  the  nation.     No  whisper  an- 
nounces that  there  is  such  a  thing  in  existence  as  the  peopi  .     No 
allusion  ever  proceeds   from  the  stately  lips  or  offends  tin    ■> 
polite,' of  the  embroidered  conclave  referring  to  either  the  intere 
feelings,  or  necessities  of  the  nation."    Nor  is  less  curious  testimony 
to  this  vanished  state  of  things  contained  in  a  letter  address*  d  by 
Burke  to  his  original  patron,  Lord  Rockingham: — "Lord  Shell »un  •  .  ' 
he  writes,  "still  continues  in  administration,  though  as  adverse  and 
as  much  disliked  as  ever.     The  Duke  of  Grafton  continues  to  bear 
the  old  complaint  of  his  situation  and  his  genuine  desire  of  holding 
it  as  long  as  he  can.     At  the  same  time,  Lord  Shelburne  gets  loose 
too;  I  know  that  Lord  Camden,  who  adhered  to  him  in  the   I 
divisions,  has  given  him  up  and  gone  over  to  the  Duke  of  Grafton 
The  Bedfords  are  horribly  frightened  at  all  this,  for  fearing  of  - 
ing  the  table  which  they  had  so  well  covered,  and  at  which  they  sat 
down  with  so  good  an  appetite,  kicked  down  in  the  sin  file,     'p 
find  things  not  ripe  at  present  for  bringing  in  Grenville,  and  that 
any  capital  move  just  now  would  only  betray  their  weakness  in 
closet  and  in  the  nation." 

Absolutely  antiquated,  of  course,  such  a  state  of  things  as  thiH 
has  long  since  been.  Nevertheless,  it  would  be  a  grave  mistake  to 
conclude  that  the  great  houses  are  without  influence  on  t  .ra- 

tion of  cabinets,  or  that  there  are  no  points  of  contact  between  aris- 
tocratic drawing-rooms  and  a  Parliament  in  which  the  popular  cham- 
ber is  elected  by  household  suffrage.     That  the  English  mass<  s       I 
secure  as  the  head  of  an  administration  any  statesman  upon  wh     i 
the v  have  set  their  hearts,  and  that  the  <  i overnment  which  is  t  • 
the  national  confidence  must  be  composed  of  men  approv*  d  by 
constituencies,  is  certain.     Still  there  is  left  a  fair  margin  in  u ! 
the  machinery  of  society  may  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  politics 
and  politicians  of  the  day.     In  the  case  of  a  Lib<  ral  Gtavernn* 
taking  office,  the  Whigs  may  hold  the  balance  between  the  lei         1 
risrht  warns,  and  the  Whigs  have  eminent  social  resources  ai  their 
disposal     In  the  same  way  with  the  Conservatives,  the  Tories  of  I 
old  school  are  not  yet  an  extinct  race;  and  a  moderate   < 
\   Premier  would  hardly  \<  nture  to  form  a  cabinet  without  consulting 
the  feelings  of  his  patrician  Tory  supporters,  or  to  decide  upon  a 


328  ENGLAND. 

legislative  programme  for  a  single  session  tliat  had  not  been  pre- 
viously considered  by  the  same  illustrious  depositaries  of  aristocratic 
power.  Neither  Whig  nor  Tory  nobles  would,  indeed,  any  longer 
dream  of  opposing  to  the  last  a  popular  demand  earnestly  and  reso- 
lutely made.  On  the  other  hand,  no  representative  of  the  people 
would  commence  with  defying  the  power  of  the  great  titular  and  ter- 
ritorial magnates.  Negotiation,  compromise,  mutual  concession  are 
the  notes  of  modern  statesmanship.  The  privileged  classes  consti- 
tute a  powerful  organization,  and  they  know  that  if  these  privileges 
are  to  be  preserved  there  must  be  the  tacit  understanding  that  what- 
ever, in  the  last  resort,  the  multitude  wills,  it  shall  have. 

But  because  it  recognizes  in  this  order  of  things  the  decree  of 
manifest  destiny,  it  has  no  idea  of  surrendering  every  thing  to  the 
popular  impulse.  Democratic  as  our  tendencies  may  be,  there  never 
was  a  time  when  rank  and  fashion,  when  every  thing  which  is  com- 
prised in  the  single  word  position,  had  so  signal  an  opportunity  of 
influencing  the  popular  mind.  The  reason  for  this  has  been  to  some 
extent  explained  in  the  preceding  chapters.  The  process  that  lias 
been  going  on  for  years  is  that  of  leveling  up.  The  increase  of  the 
wealth  of  the  middle  classes,  and  their  intermarriage  with  their  so- 
cial superiors,  have  caused  them  to  assimilate  the  tastes  and  preju- 
dices of  then-  new  connections.  Property  grows,  and  the  holders  of 
property  naturally  take  the  color  of  their  views  from  those  who  are 
above  them,  and  not  from  those  who  are  below.  The  consequences 
of  this,  whether  socially  or  politically  considered,  are  identical.  It 
is  the  aristocratic  principle  which  dominates  our  political,  as  it  dom- 
inates our  social,  system.  The  statesman  who  was  indiscreetly  to 
proclaim  the  truth  from  the  house-tops  might  probably  suffer  for 
his  communicativeness.  The  most  powerful  Prime  Minister  whom 
England  has  seen  for  many  years,  Lord  Beaconsiield,  acted  upon  a 
clear  recognition  of  this  fact  in  the  appointments  which  he  made 
during  the  latter  period  of  his  office  to  various  posts  in  his  adminis- 
tration— those  of  Sir  Michael  Hicks  Beach  to  the  Secretaryship  of 
State  for  the  Colonies;  of  Colonel  Stanley  to  the  Ministry  of  War; 
of  Lord  Sandon  to  the  Board  of  Trade ;  of  Mr.  E.  Stanhope  to  the 
Under  Secretaryship  for  India;  of  Lord  George  Hamilton  to  the  Vice- 
Presidency  of  the  Council;  of  Sir  M.  "VV.  Ridley  to  the  Under  Sec- 
retaryship of  the  Home  Office;  of  Sir  H.  Selwin  Ibbetson  to  the 
Secretaryship  of  the  Treasury;  of  Mr.  J.  Gr.  Talbot  to  the  Secretary- 
ship of  the  Board  of  Trade.  The  influence  of  appointments  made 
on  such  principles  as  these  extends  farther,  than  might  be  thought. 
It  will  be  felt  more  in  the  future  even  than  in  the  present.     Eacli  of 


SOCIETY  AND    POLITICS. 

the  gentlemen  whose  names  have  been  mention*  n«,t 

only  ability,  but  great  advantages  of  birth,  Btation,  and  connection. 
Some  one  of  their  number  may  possibly  furnish  a  futur<  i  rem 
most  of  them  may  reasonably  expect  a  place  in  si. me  Conservative 
cabinet.  In  fact,  their  very  appointment  to  the  offices  indicated 
was  the  beginning  of  their  apprenticeship  to  the  work  of  Cabinet 
Ministers.  Thus  the  aristocratic  principle  in  politics  maj  be  viev 
in  process  of  transmission,  and  in  this  way  there  is  a  guarantee  af- 
forded that  a  considerable  portion  of  the  most  important  adminis- 
trative work  of  the  nation  will  be  in  the  hands  of  men  who  have  the 
ear  of  that  section  of  the  community  which  is  often  used  as  a  syn- 
onym for  good  society. 

Hence,  it  is  not  surprising  that  statesmanship  should   have   a 
tendency  to  become  as  much  a  tradition  in  some  families  as  Wu- 
gout,  a  quality  subtly  communicated  from  father  to  son.     The  most 
valuable  political  training  which  a  young  man  can  have  is  given  him 
by 'surrounding  circumstances  and  associations,  and  is  wholly  apart 
from  the  education  of  books.     Aristocracies  exist  by  force,  democ- 
racies by  ideas;   and  English  statesmanship,  at  its   mosi   vigoi 
J  epochs,  has  never  been  exclusively,  or  even  mainly,  allied  with  lit- 
erary scholarship.     If  the  reading  of  books  be  the  measure  of  knowl- 
*  edge,  then  the  young  men  of  the  higher  classes  of  English  Booiety 
i  are  the  most  ignorant  in  the  world.     If  an  acquaintance  with  I 
theories  of  philosophers  and  the  speculations  of  historians  be  n.  ci 
sary  to  enable  them  to  render  their  country  sound  political  service, 
then  that  service  will  never  be  rendered  by  them.     Bui  if  there  be 
such  a  thing  as  education  without  books,  and  if  that   i-    the  m 
valuable  education  of  all,  it  is  as  well  that  matters  should  remain  as 
the}'  are.     The  science  of  life  can  only  be  learned  from  life  ii 
and  wherever  human  natm-e   is — in  the   senate   or   the  street,   the 
court  or  the  club — it  is  pretty  much  the  same.     Our  young  men 
nowadays  rattle  round  the  world  in  the  course  of  the  grand  tour. 
They  study  the  idiosyncrasies  of  their  countrymen  and  countrywo- 
men in  the  drawing-room,  on  the  race-course,  in  the  ]  ark,  and  the 
entire  process  is  one  of  unc  insdous  education.     The  km  •   of 

events  and  places  which  is  picked  up  from  books  is  the  |  don 

of  one  day  and  the  loss  of  the  next.     The  knowledge  which  practical 
experience  gives  remains. 

Nor  is  it  only  that  the  character  of  the  Imglisb  nation  and  I 
genius  of  our  English  political  Bystem  are  favorable  t"  th< 
of  social  influences  upon   politics.     Social  influences,  a.-  aid 

vntinuoush'  felt  in  the  region  of  public  life,  ait  implied 


330  ENGLAND. 

tern  of  party  government.  If  in  ordinary  times  polite  society  seems 
to  be  indifferent  to  the  issues  of  party  politics,  there  are  not  quite 
unknown  ladies  who  are  born  stateswomen,  who  have  a  natural  turn 
for  forecasting  parliamentary  combinations,  and  who  calculate  the 
probable  figures  of  the  division  list  with  the  eagerness  of  junior 
whips.  For  the  most  part,  it  is  only  heroic  questions,  or  questions 
in  which  the  chief  questions  concerned  are  easy  to  grasp,  and  appeal 
directly  to  the  imagination,  that  have  any  large  interest  for  society. 
If  a  measure  were  introduced  for  disestablishing  and  disendowing 
the  National  Church,  thousands  of  feminine  swords  would  meta- 
phorically liash  from  their  scabbards.  Again,  such  problems  as  the 
Eastern  Question  have  a  social  aspect  as  well  as  a  profound  political 
significance.  Its  broad  issues  have  been  fairly  intelligible,  or  have, 
at  least,  seemed  so,  without  the  accompaniment  of  figures  and  sta- 
tistics. Moreover,  they  have  been  fraught  with  much  of  that  purely 
personal  attraction  which  politics  so  often  lack.  The  rivalry  be- 
tween the  two  most  distinguished  statesmen  of  the  day  has  be*en 
brought  into  prominent  and  sensational  relief.  The  progress  of  the 
bloody  strife  between  Turk  and  Russian  gave  just  those  opportu- 
nities for  the  display  of  sympathy  which  society  loves.  Concerts 
or  fetes  were  constantly  being  held  in  aid  of  one  or  other  of  the 
combatants;  and  fashionable  sisters  of  mercy  not  only  were  able  to 
occupy  themselves  with  a  good  work,  but  had  the  satisfaction  of 
deriving  from  it  a  fair  measure  of  social  excitement. 

The  country  house  is  also  an  important  point  of  convergence  be- 
tween society  and  politics.  The  country-house  system  is  as  distinct- 
ively national  as  the  British  Constitution,  and  the  country-house 
season  is  one  which  may  be  said  to  last  all  the  year  round.  The 
English  country  house  is  a  microcosm  of  the  chief  forces  that  are  at 
work  in  modern  society.  If  it  is  a  good  thing,  and  one  which  has 
tended  to  the  partial  obliteration  of  the  hard  and  fast  lines  which 
separate  class  from  class,  that  our  aristocracy  should  open  their 
parks  upon  occasion  to  all  who  like  to  make  decorous  holiday  within 
their  limits,  a  corresponding  social  good  is  done  when  they  open 
their  houses,  as  freely  as  they  now  do,  to  men  who  represent  some- 
thing more  than  the  principles  of  idleness  and  enjoyment.  To  a 
large  percentage  of  visitors  the  season  now  spoken  of  is  but  a  syn- 
onym for  the  shooting  season.  Even  the  sportsmen  are  not  deficient 
in  a  certain  representative  character.  There  are  among  them  men 
of  business  as  well  as  pleasure;  members  of  all  professions;  gentle- 
men who,  as  a  rule,  never  know  what  is  a  day's  idleness,  as  well  as 
others  who  have  never  known  what  is  a  day's  work.     Bishops,  or 


SOCIETY  AND   POLITICS. 

some  other  highly-placed  divines,  will  give  an  air  of  eminent  i 
spectability  to  the  gathering,  and  raggestively  symbolize  the  oi 

of  Church  ami  State.     A  traveler  who  has  newly  returned  to  I 
soil,  after  years  of  exploration  and   wandering,  is  also  a  di 
acquisition.     Professors  are  found  to  relax  a  g 1  .1.  al  of  their  pro- 
fessorial dignity.     Highly  scientific  jurists,  as  well  as  natural  philos- 
ophers, very  often  blend  admirably -with  the  other  guests;  and  i 
interesting  to  watch  how  an  erudite  historian,  who  has  delivered  a 
little  lecture  of  a  rather  stiff  character  in  the  afternoon  on  the  re- 
mains of  an  ancient  British  camp,  becomes   pleasantly  chatty  on 
commonplace  topics  at  dinner,  and  shows  that  he  has  a  keen  appre- 
ciation of  the  ludicrous  offer  a  cigar  in  the  smoking-room.     It  may 
be  thought  that  one  regulation  character  has  been  omitted  from  this 
catalogue.     Where,  it  will  be  possibly  said,  is  the  wit  of  the  com- 
|  pany?     The  truth  is,  he  is  not  always  to  be  found.     His  jests  are 
\  becoming  familiar  and  wearisome,  and  though  "  society  "  like  I  to  be 
amused,  it  has  a  highly  edifying  taste  for  instruction  as  well.     So, 
instead  of  the  punsters  pure  and  simple,  it  invites  to  its   hou 
professors  who  can  be  facetious  when  wanted,  or  phi]  who 

can  either  solve  the  riddle  of  the  universe  or  assist  in  the  guessing 
of  a  double  acrostic.  In  these  blended  elements  the  political  tills 
a  prominent  place.  It  was  said  by  Moore,  the  poet,  that  there  was 
no  receipt  for  taming  a  Radical  like  an  invitation  to  Bowood.  'i'i 
is  no  doubt  that  if  the  secret  political  history  of  the  past  Forty  yean 
could  be  written  in  the  frank  fashion  of  the  "Greville   Mi  "  it 

would  be  found  that  in  many  instances  a  judicious  course  of  Whig 
hospitality  during  the  months  of  autumn  had  subdued  the  wild  fervor 
of  the  hitherto  intractable  and  irreconcilable  demoa 

While  the  country  house,  as  an  institution,  situated  in  that 
tensive  borderland  where  polities  and  society  meet,  is  common  to 
both  the  great  political  parties  in  the  State,  it  has  been  reserved  for 
\  the  Conservatives  to  achieve  a  unique  success  with  the  club  system. 
And  here  it  may  be  desirable  to  say  a  few  prelimin  the 

general  question  of  clubs,  dubs  may  generally  be  described  as 
embodying  the  principle  of  co-operation  in  its  application  to  ta\ 
life.  They  have  been  of  great  service,  both  political  and  social:  in 
the  latter  capacity  they  have  done  an  immense  deal  t  wards  the 
creation  of  a  sound  holy  of  public  opinion;  in  the  former,  they  b 
consolidated  the  a  use  of  unity,  and  have  increased  that  mutual 
knowledge  which  is  essentia]  for  the  keeping  tog<  tJ  i  r  ol  the  various 
members  of  a  political  organization.     How  Ear  clubs  po  thai 

quality  of  economy  which  is  one  of  the  advantages  that  d 


332  ENGLAND. 

usually  bestows  may  be  doubted.  At  some  of  the  older  established 
institutions,  which  have  large  balances  in  their  banker's  hands,  it  is 
indeed  possible  to  procure  the  necessities  and  luxuries  of  life  at  cost 
price,  and  to  eat  dinners  for  a  third  of  the  sum  which  they  would 
cost  at  an  ordinary  restaurant;  but  it  is  a  delusion  to  suppose  that, 
in  the  majority  of  clubs,  a  gentleman  can  live  as  cheaply  as  he  may 
do  if  he  has  his  meals  in  his  own  apartments,  or  even  at  well-selected 
taverns.  There  are  certainly  very  few  clubs  in  London  at  which  it 
would  be  possible  to  have  so  good  and  so  complete  a  dinner  as  may 
now  be  purchased  at  more  than  one  London  restaurant  for  three 
shillings  and  sixpence.  What  the  club  man  does  get,  what  he  could 
not  get  elsewhere,  and  what  he  may  well  be  content  to  pay  for,  is  a 
very  considerable  degree  of  luxury  and  of  comfort.  For  all  practi- 
cal purposes  he  is  the  inhabitant  of  a  palace,  and  so  long  as  he  pays 
his  subscription  and  does  not  egregiously  violate  the  laws  of  the 
institution,  he  need  not  fear  that  he  will  be  exiled  from  it.  The 
social  advantages  of  clubs  are  apt  to  be  exaggerated  even  more  than 
the  economical  ones.  Membership  of  a  really  first-rate  club  does 
undoubtedly  confer  upon  a  man  some  degree  of  social  distinction. 
But  then,  it  is  rather  the  hall-mark  Avhich  stamps  the  value  of  the 
article  than  the  article  itself.  It  is  the  formal  recognition  of  social 
qualities  or  advantages  which  have  an  existence  perfectly  inde- 
pendent of  the  club,  and  which  are  indeed  the  primary  cause  of 
membership.  But  of  society,  in  the  sense  of  fellowship,  a  club  does 
not  necessarily  give  any  thing;  indeed,  the  genius  of  modern  club 
life  may  be  almost  described  as  that  of  isolation.  A  new-comer  into 
the  community  will  probably  find  that  he  is  not  the  less  completely 
alone  because  he  happens  to  be  in  the  company  of  some  score  of 
his  fellow-creatures. 

To  belong  to  a  club  does  not  necessarily  cany  a  personal  ac- 
quaintance with  any  one  of  the  members.  In  some  clubs,  where 
there  exists  a  less  rigid  system  of  etiquette,  it  is  not  thought  irreg- 
ular for  one  member  to  address  another  of  whom  he  knows  noth- 
ing if  they  happen  to  occupy  contiguous  chairs  in  the  smoking-room; 
in  such  matters  as  these,  as  in  many  others,  every  London  club  of 
importance  has  special  features  of  its  own.  Clubs  themselves  pre- 
sent almost  as  many  and  various  characteristics  as  do  the  gentlemen 
frequenting  them.  To  some  men  a  club  is  a  mere  lounge ;  at  which 
they  spend  perhaps  two  or  three  hours  daily;  perhaps  not  as  much 
as  two  or  three  hours  a  week.  The  more  superficial  specimen  of  a 
club  lounger  enters  the  morning-room  hurriedly,  just  looks  into  the 
candidate's  book,  and  then,  after  a  few  words  of  casual  gossip  Avith 


SOCIETY  AND    POLITICS. 

a  slight  acquaintance,  meets  a  gentleman  with  whom  hi   is  on  more 
intimate  terms,  and  arranges  perhaps  some  question  of  business  or 
of  pleasure.     Others  there  are  who  are  regularly  to  be  found  al  their 
club  on  certain  days,  or  at  certain  hours  in  every  day,  during  I 
week;  while  to  others,  again,  the  club  is  not  merely  a  second  hoi 
but  home  itself.     As  are  the  clubmen  so  are  the  clubs.     Al 
there  is  a  general  air  of  easy  familiarity,  at  others  there  is  as  much 
ceremony  as  at  a  State  function;  at  some  members  sit  down  to  'tin- 
ner without  compunction  in  morning  dress,  at  others  this  is  a  sin, 
which  would  Only  be  excused  if  the  diner  were  on  the  poini  of  set- 
ting out  on  a  journey. 

It  is  not  only  the  clubs  which  are  specially  affected  to  one  or 
other  of  the  two  great  political  parties,  that  subserve,  in  sonic  way 
or  other,  a  political  purpose.  These  do  not,  of  course,  charge  them- 
selves with  an  evangelizing  mission  in  statesmanship,  as  the  pur<  ly 
political  clubs  do.  Political  committees,  charged  with  the  adminis- 
tration of  a  fund  for  political  purposes,  whose  business  it  is  to  watch 
over  parliamentary  elections,  and  to  see  that  its  members  do  not  too 
flagrantly  violate,  in  their  political  action,  the  principles  of  the  party 
to  which  they  belong,  are  not  unknown  in  clubs;  but  if  these  b<  lies 
are  wise,  they  will  use  then*  power  very  sparingly.  It  was  not  con- 
sidered a  prudent  act,  on  the  part  of  the  committee  of  the  Conserv- 
ative Club  in  St.  James's  Street,  when  it  expelled  the  first  Lord 
Westbury,  at  the  time  he  was  Solicitor-General  in  Lord  Aberdeen's 
Government;  nor,  in  the  general  opinion  of  politicians  who  w< 
also  men  of  the  world,  did  the  Reform  Club  exhibit  much  greater 
judgment  when  it  exiled,  a  few  years  ago,  Mr.  Ripley,  the  member 
for  Bradford,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  not  shown  himself  a  good 
member  of  the  Liberal  party.  The  Carlton  Club  has  shown  more 
sagacity,  and  has  never  recognized  the  existence  of  the  political 
committee,  which  has  now  at  the  Junior  Carlton  Club  become  a 
dead  letter.  Just  as  the  late  Lord  Derby  was  a  membt  rof  I  '■ 
to  the  end  of  his  life,  so  it  was  only  a  few  years  ago  thai  Mr.  Glad- 
stone removed  his  name  from  the  Carlton  list.  When,  in  1852  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  personally  insulted  by  some  Conservative  members 
of  the  Carlton,  the  public  opinion  of  the  club  was  emphatically 
against  the  perpetrators  of  the  aggression.  Clubs,  as  a  c 
link  between  society  and  statesmanship,  are  of  proved  utility,  hut 
their  utility  very  largely  depends  upon  die  skill  and  judgment  with 
which  they  are  managed;  if  the  tactics  adopted  at  all  Bavor  i 
quisition,  they  are  sure  to  prove  a  failure. 

As  for  the  true  explanation  of  the  differ*  e.t  168  that  have 


334  ENGLAND. 

waited  on  the  development  of  the  club  principle  among  Conserva- 
tives and  Liberals,  it  must  be  sought  for  in  the  radical  divergences 
between  the  composition  of  the  two  parties,  and  the  traditions,  feel- 
ings, and  prejudices  of  their  members.  The  Conservative  is  by  na- 
ture a  clubbable  creature,  in  the  modern  acceptation  of  the  word. 
Liberals  and  Conservatives  each  have  a  cachet  of  exclusiveness  of 
their  own;  but  the  Conservative  exclusiveness  differs  from  the  Lib- 
eral in  this :  that  it  does  not  militate  against — that,  in  fact,  it  rather 
ministers  to — freedom  in  club  life.  Proof  of  the  fact  is  to  be  found 
in  the  existence  of  the  Carlton,  the  club  of  the  Conservative  party, 
in  a  sense  in  which  the  Liberals  have  no  club  at  all.  Unlike  the 
Reform,  unlike  Brooks's,  the  Carlton  is  used  equally  by  the  official 
leaders,  the  titled  and  patrician  chiefs  of  the  party,  and  by  the  rank 
and  file  of  their  followers.  Great  peers,  small  squires,  merchants, 
and  traders  meet  together  on  a  common  ground,  and  every  Con- 
servative has  a  club  acquaintance — and,  for  the  most  part,  a  club 
acquaintance  only — with  his  accepted  chieftains.  There  is  no  such 
comprehensiveness  or  homogeneity  as  this  about  the  Liberal  clubs. 
The  ordinary  members  of  the  party  make  the  Reform  their  house  of 
call — as  do  several  hundreds  of  other  gentlemen  who  have  no  occu- 
pation in  particular,  and  whose  political  views  are  conveniently  col- 
orless. The  leaders  of  the  party  go  to  Brooks's.  The  Carlton  is,  in 
fact,  what  it  pretends  to  be — a  purely  politico-social  institution,  the 
accepted  rendezvous  and  head-quarters  of  the  accredited  represent- 
atives of  a  party.  The  Reform  Club  lacks  political  unity  among  its 
members,  and  the  pervading  consciousness  of  a  political  purpose. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Liberal  leaders  receive  their  political  follow- 
ers with  hospitality  and  warmth  at  their  private  residences;  and, 
while  of  club  intercourse  there  may  be  less  among  the  Liberals,  of 
private  visiting  and  social  hospitality — open  house  and  friendly  en- 
tertainment— there  is  probably  more. 

Nor  is  it  difficult  to  see  why  clubs  exactly  suit  the  genius  of  the 
Conservative  party.  .  Modern  Conservatism  is  successful  precisely  in 
proportion  as  it  is  an  alliance  between  the  aristocratic  and  democratic 
elements.  The  attitude  of  mind  and  bearing  favorable  for  the  per- 
petuation of  this  alliance  has  long  been  cultivated  among  the  Con- 
servatives to  a  degree  that  was  scarcely  possible  among  the  Liberals. 
The  typical  Tory  has  been  a  large  landowner,  and  if  not  a  master  of 
fox-hounds,  a  tolerably  assiduous  votary  of  the  hunting-field.  Cir- 
cumstances have  made  it  his  part  to  ingratiate  himself  with  his  infe- 
riors, and  unconsciously  he  has  learned  to  study  and  exhibit  in  his 
own  person  that  air  of  well-bred  condescension,  of  frank,  unsuper- 


SOCIETY    AND     pr>T  r-rtr<T*=SS: ^^ 


cilious  patronage,  whioh  answers  so  ^ell  with   l  bmen  in  the 

bulk.     There  could  be  no  better  kind  of  hereditary  pr<  paration  I 
the  mixed  regime  of  club  life  than  this;  there  could  be 

opportunity  of  cheaply,  ye!   .      ctively,  satisfying  the  Booial  i 
tions  of  political  followers  than  the  Conservative  dub.    The  manner 
to  which  he  has  been  born;  the  genial,  hearty  address  which 
to  mean  so  much,  and  really  means  so  little;  the  blu     ' 
esy  which  has  been  picked  up,  or  inherited   from  ancestors  who 
picked  it  up,  at  the  covert  sid->  and  in  daily  conversations  with  Earn- 
ers and  laborers,  serves  its  turn  admirably  when  it  is  reproduced, 
with  the  necessary  modifications,  in   Pal]   Mall. 

As  a  social  instrument  used  for  political  purposes,  the  salon  i 
scarcely  be  now  said  to  fill  a  verj  definite  place  in  England.     En- 
glish political  society  has  grown  too  large  for  its  representatives  to 
be  contained  within  the  limits  of  a  single  drawing-room;  or  it  c 
be  that  the  very  dimensions  which  society  has  attained  have  ins]   red 
English  ladies,  who  might,  under  other  circumstances,  hav<    b 
dictatresses,  with  .a  profound  impression  of  the  bo]  of  en- 

gaging in  the  attempt  to  regulate  so  chaotic  an  empire.     1. 
ladies  who   are   capable  of  controlling  a  drawing-room   havi    i 
ceased  to  exist,  but,  with  a  very  few  exceptions,   their  ad 

powers  are  now  exercised  in  different  areas,      i  in 

England,  while  possessing  a  strong  political  infusion,  i      ui- 

sively  political;  it  is  the  object  of  those  who  govern  it  to  include  in 
it  representatives  of  all  that  is  distinguished  in  art,  science,  literati.  ■ 
war,  and  commerce.     Even  Prime  Ministers  no  longer  confine  their 
guests  to  those  who  are  politicians  merely,  and  ti  ■■    dinni 

given  on  Her  Majesty's  birthday  and  other  occasions  are  grao   I 
the  presence  of  eminent  artists,  authors,  and,  philosoph 

It  is,  therefore,  rather  because  the  conditions  of  English  Boci 
have  changed  that  the  salon,  in  the  sense  in  which  it    is  asua 

spoken  of,  has  almost  ceased  to  exist,  than  because  i pportunit 

or  inducements  are  to  be  found  to  influence  politics  through  society. 
When  Lady  Palinerston  died,  in  1868,  there  passi  I  awa^   the 
social  queen  of  her  era,  and  she  has  had  no 

extraordinary  popularity  of  Lord  Palmerston  was  uol  a  plant  of  sud- 
den growth.     On  the  contrary,  Lord  Palmerston  was  for  a  Longtime 
extremely  the  reverse  of  popular.     He  married,  and  a  change  lot 
place.     For  most  of  his  popularity  and  much  of  hie 
husband  was  indebted  to  the  social  tad  and  the 
A  little  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  Lord  John  Rue  all,  on 
a  memorable  1  Lord  Palmerston  from 


336  ENGLAND. 

Office.  The  exile  was  short;  but  it  was  short  only  because,  who* 
ever  ruled  in  Downing  Street,  Lady  Palmerston  ruled  in  society. 
The  world  not  merely  sympathized  with  Lord  Palmerston  as  against 
Lord  John  Russell:  it  applauded  him;  and  only  a  few  days  after  the 
split  in  the  Cabinet  took  place,  Lady  Palmerston  gave  a  party,  which 
may  be  remembered  as  historical,  and  at  which  was  present  every 
person  of  political,  social,  or  intellectual  position.  The  Times  con- 
tained a  complete  list  of  the  guests,  under  the  significant  heading: 
"The  Expelled  Minister";  and  Mr.  Disraeli,  who  was  of  the  com- 
pany, declared  to  Lord  Granville  that  he  had  made  a  mistake  when, 
a  few  nights  previously,  he  had  said,  "There  was  a  Palmerston." 

Lady  Palmerston  received  not  only  at  night,  but  in  the  day.  All 
her  invitation-cards  were  written  with  her  own  hand.  By  consum- 
mate skill  she  preserved  for  her  assemblies  the  cachet  of  distinction; 
and  every  one  who  was  invited  to  them  regarded  the  invitation  as 
an  honor,  although  he  was  not  singular  in  the  enjoyment  of  it. 
There  was  no  resort  in  London  so  interesting  to  the  man  of  the 
world  or  so  useful  to  the  politician.  It  was  the  one  place  where  the 
pulse  of  the  world  might  be  infallibly  felt,  and  Ministers  went  there 
to  ascertain  the  true  currents  of  popular  and  polite  opinion.  The 
place  left  vacant  by  the  death  of  Lady  Palmerston,  more  than  one 
great  lady  has  done  her  best  to  fill.  But  their  invitations  are  in  the 
hands  of,  and  are  issued,  as  the  names  of  the  invited  are  written,  by 
secretaries,  whips,  and  clerks.  Attendance  at  these  assemblies  is  as 
much  a  business  as  a  pleasure.  Almost  the  same  thing  may  be  said 
of  many  great  political  dinners.  The  great  leaders  of  the  two  chief 
political  parties  in  the  State  cannot,  and  will  not,  study  the  arts  of 
social  entertainment.  Dinners  and  receptions  are  given,  but  they 
are  given — as  invitations  to  them  are  accepted — as  matters  of  neces- 
sity and  not  of  choice.  Nothing  can  be  easier  than  to  exaggerate  the 
influence  exercised  upon  political  life,  whether  by  clubs  or  salons. 
It  is  perfectly  true  that  the  club,  as  has  been  already  said,  has  an- 
swered better  in  the  hands  of  Conservatism  than  of  Liberalism.  But 
the  inference  is,  not  so  much  that  the  successful  organization  of 
Conservatism  is  the  result  of  club  life,  as  that  particular  reasons 
conducive  to  club  success  exist  in  the  case  of  Conservatives  and  not 
among  the  Liberals.  The  first  essential  in  the  development  of  club 
life  is  a  supply  of  moderately  young  men,  tolerably  well  provided 
with  pocket-money.  These  are  the  special  possession  of  Conserva- 
tism, while,  in  addition  to  these,  the  Conservatives  have  an  element 
of  social  and  political  stability  which  the  Liberals  have  not.  In  the 
same  way.  to  search  for  Lord  Paimerston's  popularity  and  power  in 


SOCIETY  AND    POLITICS.  337 

Lady  Palmerston'a  drawing-room  is  to  confuse  cause  and  effect    The 
period  was  one  of  political  indifference,  and  Cambridge  Bouses 
distinguished  rendezvous     It  was  the  former  of  these  circumstanoea 
which  assisted  the  latter,  not  the  latter  which  created  the  former. 

So  far  as  any  permanent  political  leverage  is  c rned,  th< 

salons  is  as  completely past  as  that  of  chivalry.     Individual  politi- 
cians may  be  amenable  to  social  pressure,  and  some  stray  irr 
able  may  be  bought  off  by  what  he  considers  social  promotion 
a  new  irreconcilable  will  at  once  disclose  himself,  and  th  i  « 1 ".  1 1  i  - 
culty  will  only  be  avoided,  not  averted.     At  the  same  time,  (li- 
the salon  is  no  longer  powerful,  it  may  be  useful     1>  maj  be  con- 
venient to  politicians  of  the  same  way  of  thinking  thai  they  should 
know  where  to  find  each  other  at  stated  times,  for  the  purp  • 
confidential  talk.     This  opportunity  the  salon  may  continue  to  afford 
them,  but  then  so,  for  that  matter,  will  the  club. 


CHAPTER   XX. 

CROWN     AND     CROWD. 

Disposition  of  the  Multitude  to  acquiesce  in  existing  Re'gime— Influence  of  the 
British  Constitution  upon  National  Character — Attitude  of  Masses  towards 
Monarch  and  Ministers — Reception  given  in  Public  to  Sovereign  and 
Leading  Statesmen  of  the  Day — Nevertheless  New  Influences  at  work 
among  the  Masses — The  Organization  of  Public  Opinion  in  Large  Con- 
stituencies— The  Caucus — Gradual  Movements  towards  Democracy — The 
Democracy  ultimately  supreme  in  our  Political  System — Effects  which 
this  Supremacy  must  have  on  Statesmanship  and  Policy — "Employer 
and  Servant"  Theory  of  Imperial  Administration — Its  Dangers,  and  how 
these  Dangers  may  be  met — Checks  upon  the  Democratic  Tendency  of 
the  Times — General  Diffusion  of  the  Aristocratic  Principle — This  illus- 
trated in  the  Relation  of  (1)  House  of  Commons,  (2)  House  of  Lords,  to 
Masses — The  Sovereign — Influence  of  the  Crown  on  Politics,  and  relation 
of  Sovereign  to  Subject. 

IT  is  a  much  easier  matter  to  give  a  general  account  of  the  place 
occupied  by  the  educated  classes  in  regard  to  our  political  sys- 
tem than  to  indicate  precisely  the  relations  existing  between  that 
system  and  the  multitude.  The  English  masses  are  not  indisposed 
to  accept  the  political  opinion  which  is  manufactured  for  them.  In 
this,  as  in  other  matters,  they  are,  for  the  most  part,  creatures  of 
habit,  and  as  long  as  the  shoe  does  not  pinch,  they  make  no  demand 
for  political  innovation.  They  look  not  to  theories,  but  to  facts. 
While  work  is  plentiful  and  wages  good,  the  British  workman  has 
not  been  accustomed  to  trouble  himself  with  the  principles  of  states- 
manship. In  England,  unlike  France  and  other  European  countries, 
there  is  not  present  to  the  mind  of  the  ordinary  citizen  the  appre- 
hension of  never-ending  changes  in  the  political  regime  under  which 
he  lives.  If  he  is  the  conscious  victim  of  abuses,  he  will,  in  the  last 
resort,  enter  a  demand  for  legislative  remedies.  After  the  long 
continuance  of  neglect  on  the  part  of  those  in  power  of  all  which 
concerns  him  most,  he  will  avail  himself,  perhaps,  of  the  machinery 
of  an  agitation  which  his  superiors  will  have  done  much  to  place  in 
his  hands,  and  which  they  will  themselves  have  suggested.  Thus 
it  was  that  the  riots  preceding  the  Reform  Act  of  1832  had  their 


CROWN  AND    CROII'P.  I 

origin]  in  the  same  way  the  movement  which  was  the  prelude  to 
the  Reform  Act  of  thirty-five  years  later,  and  which  culmin       I 
in  the  breaking  down  of  the  Hyde  Park  railings,  would  in  all  ] 
ability  never  have  existed,  had  if  nol  bees  for  the  fad  i 

was  for  many  years  antecedently  the  Btalking-horse  I 

that  on  this  occasion  its  importance  was  insisted  i>n  by  <  \  aker 

on  every  Liberal  platform. 

What  the   English  multitude  requires  from  the  stale  La  mi    'i 
what  it  requires  from  the  private  employers  of  its  labor-  it 
that  it  shall  be  fairly  treated,  that  it  shall  not   be  the  victu 
exceptional  inferiority,  disadvantages,  or  disqualification     Pel 
cal  revolutions  leave  their  impress  upon  the  individual  character 
of  a  people,  and  in  a  country  in  which  dynastic  and  constitui        I 
changes  are  at  any  moment  liable  to  occur,  a  habit  of  fickleo  I 

suspicion  will  be  generated  in  the  subjects.  But  for  the  very  n  i 
that  the  English  masses  themselves  are  not  greatly  -  db       ( 

interested  in  constitutional  discussions,  their  political  teachers  and 
rulers  ought  to  be  careful  that  constitutional  issues  should  noi   be 
raised.     Whenever  there  is  a  discussion  in  Parliament  as  to  whether 
a  particular  act  or  policy  is  in  conformity  with  constitutional  lavi 
far  as  any  effect  is  produced  upon  the  multitude  at  large,  it 
scarcely  be  salutary.     As  far  as  the  practical  working  of  the  Consti- 
tution goes,  it  depends,  as  financial  credit  depends,  upon  confidi 
So  long  as  the  English  masses  have  confidence  in  the  wisdom        1 
moderation  of  their  statesmen,  the  cry  for  reorganizing  the  <  'insti- 
tution will  never  be  of  much  volume.     If  the  study  of  history  could 

1  influence  the  feeling  of  the  working  classes  towards  the  r» 
sentative  of  English  monarchy,  the  result  would  probably  not  I 
the  direction  of  loyalty.     In  the  popular  histories  and  in  some  of  the 
popular  periodicals  which  circulate   amongst   the  working  cla      9, 
the  views  given  of  monarchy  and  of  other  established  instituti 
are   eminently  unfavorable.     Yet  when  the  sovereign    app  i 

public  the  reception  is  one  of  the  highest  enthusiasm  the  very 
men  who  a  few  hours  previously  may  have  given  vent  to  sentiments 
positively  seditious  arc  home  away  on  the  tide  of  general  feeling, 
and  applaud  the  pageant  to  the  echo. 

Let  us  suppose  that  Her  Majesty  has  to-day  opened  the  s.    rion 
of  her  Imperial  Parliament  and  that,  as  is  bum  to  bave  '■•     i  the 

.    very   many   of   her   loyal  have    :i 

or  other  of  the  ceremony.     M   ve  there  been  an; 

Strolling  across  the  Gre<  i  Park,  after  having  witn<       Ithecelel 

t ion,  one  may  have  encountered  a  moody-looking  malodorous  pair, 


340  ENGLAND. 

some  of  whose  criticisms  on  the  monarchical  principle  are  but  too 
audible.  One,  at  least,  of  these  scowling  but  perfectly  harmless 
democrats  the  spectator  may  have  seen  before  to-day.  His  chin  is 
rough  and  stubbly  and  of  a  dirty  blue  color,  with  a  beard  of  some 
days'  growth.  He  has  no  linen  visible.  In  his  mouth  is  a  short 
pipe,  from  which  he  discharges  jerky  blasts  of  intolerable  smoke; 
and  as  he  leans  across  the  iron  railings  in  converse  with  his  com- 
panion he  points  with  the  finger  of  scornful  menace  in  the  direc- 
tion of  Buckingham  Palace.  The  spectacle  of  the  charity-girls  and 
the  Duke  of  York's  boys,  who  have  been  marched  out  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  their  Sovereign,  incites  him  to  wrath.  The  words  "  mock- 
ery "  and  " desjtotism,"  "tyrant"  and  "oppressor,"  "prince"  and 
"flunky,"  "reason,"  "humanity,"  and  "republic,"  drop  at  intervals 
from  his  lips.  But  where  was  ho  to  be  seen  a  few  hours  ago,  and 
what  was  he  doing?  Conspicuous  among  these  demonstratively 
loyal  subjects  of  Her  Majesty,  carried  away  by  that  irresistible 
contagion  of  loyal  enthusiasm  which  a  great  crowd  communicates, 
was  this  terrible  republican,  the  democratic  fire-brand  of  the  dis- 
cussion forum,  the  modern  disciple  of  Marat  and  Tom  Paine.  This 
is  no  exceptional  experience.  Whenever  it  is  known  that  either  the 
Queen  or,  as  Her  Majesty's  representatives,  the  Prince  and  Princess 
of  Wales  are  about  to  appear  in  public,  a  tremor  of  anticipatory  en- 
thusiasm asserts  its  presence  in  thoroughfares.  Men,  women,  and 
children  gather  in  little  knots  and  wait  till  the  royal  carriage 
approaches.  Frequently  the  interval  of  waiting  is  long.  That  they 
do  not  mind.  Be  it  summer  or  winter,  at  the  risk  of  sun-stroke 
or  the  certainty  of  getting  drenched  to  the  skin,  the  patient  and 
most  loyal  populace  will  not  disperse  till  the  carriage  in  which  mon- 
archy is  seated  has  driven  past,  and  the  national  devotion  to  the 
monarchical  principle  has  expressed  itself  in  a  series  of  shouts  that 
rend  the  ah. 

Scarcely  less  impressive  in  its  way  is  the  public  reception  which, 
especially  on  great  occasions,  is  accorded  to  the  Enghsh  statesmen 
whose  names  are  household  words,  whether  they  are  past  or  present 
members  of  the'  Cabinet.  The  scene  is  Palace  Yard,  and  there  is  a 
great  debate  expected.  Every  minute  the  inclosure  grows  fuller 
and  fuller  of  cabs  and  carriages,  and  of  masses  of  enthusiastic  and 
excited  spectators  as  well.  They  form  an  avenue  in  front  of  the 
entrance  into  the  great  hall,  and  they  greet  their  favorite  statesman 
with  volleys  of  applause.  The  rank  and  file  of  the  representatives 
of  the  people  pass  without  general  recognition,  till  some  statesman, 
whose  person  is  as  familiar  as  his  career,  makes  his  appearance,  and 


CROWN   .  841 

is  greeted  with  salvos  of  acclamation.     "v  nothin  do- 

ticeable  about  the  great  man.     Be  is  of  the  middle  I  i 

a  little;  he  has  a  lightish  beard  and  whiskers,  which  are  jusl  I 

with  gray;  he  wears  spectacles;  and  he  walks  with  rather  a  q 
step,  looking  neither  to  the  right  nor  Left  As  he  passes  he  bows 
more  than  once;  and  who  shall  say  that  the  sound  of  the  rin  r 
plaudits  does  not  fall  pleasantly  on  his  ears  and  convey  a  <•■ 
ble  hint  to  his  anxious  soul!  He  is,  perhaps,  not  exactly  whal  would 
be  called  a  heaven-born  statesman.  He  is  nol  an  orator  like  Can- 
ning-; he  does  not  display  the  skill  of  a  Palmerston  in  fathoming  tho 
secrets  of  European  diplomacy.  But  he  lias  the  confidence  of  hi* 
countrymen,  who  know  that  he  will  make  no  greal  mistake;  and 
that  then*  main  interests  are  safe  in  his  keeping.  Pree  ntly  tin  re  in 
another  arrival.  He  has  just  left  his  carriage,  and  as  he  proc<  eds 
bravely  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  tho  crowd  the  face  oi  a  Lady  Looks  "itfc 
from  the  brougham.  His  si  ■:>  is  light  and  firm;  his  face  pale  as 
death,  but  strong  and  resolute.  He  is  a  man  who  has  never  quailed 
before  an  angry  crowd;  as  a  politician,  he  has  always  had  his  fo  A  in 
the  stirrup,  and  as  a  speaker,  has  always  I  his  lance  in 

But,  in  truth,  he  has  seldom  had  occasion  to  dread  the  clamoring  of 
an  angry  mob.  He  lias  been  the  people's  hero,  and  the  Bounds 
which  have  almost  always  greeted  him  have  been  those  that 
tilled  an  unshakable  belief  in  his  genius  and  his  virtues  It  is  a 
curious,  even  a  menacing,  conflict  of  noises  which  awaits  him  now. 
There  are  cheers,  and  there  are  groans;  there  arc  his  ad  there 

are  cheers  again.  He  walks  very  swiftly;  no  muscle  quivers;  the 
only  change  visible  in  his  counter  i  that  the  pallor  of  bis  cheeks 

grow;;  deadlier,  and  his  figure  more  i  rect.  By  what  curious  fatality 
is  it  that  this  statesman — who  has  been  bi  le  pul  I  well- 

nigh  half*a  century,  and  during  most  of  that  time  h 
those  who  share  the  responsibility  for  the  conduct   of  I        Q     en's 
Government — is  followed  by  the  veteran  and  victorious  chi<  t,  who 
has  been  during  nearly  I  'le  of  this  p  iri  >d  hi-  peculi  I 

and  special  foe  V     By  what   stran  d  i      be,  this  hero  of  tho 

fiercest  parliament ar\  which,  since  1832,  tb    century  1; 

on  this  afternoon,  above  all  othei  it  as  bis  approach  to  the  i 

trious  chamber  in  which  he  has  won  himself  a  place  the  greal  hall, 
before  whose  p  r  als  ar<  ranged  the  outside  critics  of  parliamentary 
statesmanship? 

Significant  as  such  scenes  a  which  have  just  been  I 

are,  and  not  m  aeral  than  'I  the  belief  in  i 

order,  new  forces  have  begun  unmistakably  to  assert  tl    tnselvi  -  in 


* 


I 


342  ENGLAND. 

the  popular  mind.  On  all  sides  there  may  now  be  witnessed  what 
may  best  be  spoken  of  as  the  organization  of  popular  opinion.  The 
spread  of  education,  the  extension  of  the  newspaper  press,  the  mul- 
tiplication of  lectures,  and  of  a  variety  of  agencies  for  bringing  the 
working  classes  together,  aU  tend  to  make  them  think  more  upon 
the  great  questions  of  contemporary  politics,  and  to  cast  about  for 
new  ways  of  giving  effect  to  the  opinions  at  which  they  thus  arrive. 
One  of  the  results  of  this  state  of  things  is  seen  in  a  tendency  to 
push  institutions  to  an  extreme.  Successive  acts  of  parliamentary 
reform,  culminating  in  household  suffrage,  have  imbued  the  masses 
with  a  strong  sense  of  political  power.  They  have  come  to  realize 
more  than  they  have  ever  done  before  the  truth  that  parliamentary 
institutions  should  be  representative  in  something  more  than  name. 
This  movement  is  one  which  is  really  altogether  new.  It  is,  per- 
hajDS,  the  first  in  a  series  of  great  changes  of  which  no  one  now 
living  will  witness  the  last.  "It  is  too  soon,"  wrote  the  late  Mr. 
"Walter  Bagehot,  in  his  introduction  *  to  the  most  useful  and  practi- 
cal work  on  the  Constitution  in  the  English  language,  "  as  yet  to 
attempt  to  estimate  the  effect  of  the  Reform  Act  of  1867.  The  Re- 
form Act  of  1832  did  not  for  many  years  disclose  its  full  conse- 
qiiences,  and  a  writer  in  1836  would  have  been  sure  to  be  mistaken 
in  them.  A  new  Constitution  does  not  produce  its  full  effect  as  long 
as  all  its  subjects  were  reared  under  an  old  Constitution,  as  long  aa 
its  statesmen  were  trained  by  that  old  Constitution.  It  is  not  really 
tested  till  it  comes  to  be  worked  by  statesmen  and  among  a  people 
neither  of  whom  are  guided  by  a  different  experience."  Mr.  Bagehot 
proceeds  to  illustrate  this  truth  in  an  interesting  and  suggestive  man- 
ner. The  change  of  generation,  he  remarks,  is  as  powerful  as  any 
change  in  political  machinery  or  institutions.  The  entire  spirit  of 
politics  was  changed  by  the  death  of  Lord  Palmerston,  and  the  dis- 
appearance from  the  stage  of  his  contemporaries.  "All  through  the 
period  between  1832  and  1865,  the  pre-'32  statesmen,  Lord  Derby, 
Lord  Russell,  Lord  Palmerston  retained  great  power;  Lord  Pal- 
merston to  the  last  retained  great  prohibitive  power.  .  .  In  con- 
sequence, at  his  death,  a  new  generation  all  at  once  started  into  life; 
the  pre-'32  all  at  once  died  out."  In  the  same  strain  this  acute  and 
luminous  writer  goes  on  to  remark  that  till  latterly  the  nominal  con- 
stituency was  not  the  real  constituency;  that  the  mass  of  the  ten- 
pound  householders  did  not  really  form  their  own  opinions,  and  did 
not  exact  of  their  representatives  an  obedience  to  these  opinions; 

*  See  Introduction  to  "The  English  Constitution,"  new  ed.,  1878. 


CROWN  AND    CROWD.  ;\\\\ 

that  they  were  in  feet  guided  in  their  judgment  by  the  better  edu- 
cated classes;  that  they  preferred  representatives  from  these  da 
and  gave  their  representatives  much  li 

In  proportion  as  political  opinion  in  the  constituencies  becomi  s 
organized  the  members  of  Parliament  elected  by  those  c 
encies  will  become  more  and  more  their  direct  representatives  It 
does  not,  indeed,  necessarily  follow  that  when  the  new  system  lias 
made  its  full  results  felt,  those  representatives  will  be  mere  dele- 
gates. Constituencies  will  always  be  aid-acted  in  many  instances 
by  men  of  great  parts,  and  will  allow  such  politicians  in  whom  their 
confidence  is  reposed  much  independent  liberty  of  action.  Promi- 
nent among  all  the  associations  for  the  organizing  of  opinion  amongst 
the  political  electorate  is  what  has  come  to  be  known  as  the  Caucus.* 
"The  aim  of  the  Caucus,"  says  a  gentleman  who,  more  than  any 
other,  is  qualified  to  expound  its  true  object  and  character,  }lr. 
Joseph  Chamberlain,  "is  essentially  democratic:  it  is  to  provide  for 
the  full  and  efficient  system  of  representation  of  the  will  of  the  ma- 
jority, and  for  its  definite  expression  in  the  government  of  the  peo- 
ple." First  let  it  be  briefly  explained  what  the  Caucus  is.  Every 
parliamentary  borough  is  divided  into  a  certain  number  of  munici- 
pal wards.  In  each  of  these  wards  a  meeting  of  all  the  mi  mbers  of 
the  party  is  annually  convened,  Avith  every  possible  provision  to  give 
it  publicity  and  importance.  The  electors  so  brought  together 
choose,  first,  their  representatives  to  the  general  committee,  the 
"Six  Hundred"  or  "Four  Hundred,"  as  it  may  be  called;  second,  a 
smaller  number  of  representatives  to  the  executive  committee,  con- 
sisting of  perhaps  twenty  to  fifty  members;  and  lastly,  a  ward  com- 
mittee which  acts  as  a  canvassing  committee  at  parliami  Diary  i 
tions,  and  which  selects  the  candidates  and  controls  the  policy  of  the 
party  in  the  ward  at  municipal  contests.  This  last  committee  is  as 
large  as  possible,  and  includes  all  who  are  willing  to  serve.     It,  will 

*  The  word  "Caucus"  is  defined  in  Worcester's  English  Dictionary,  pnl>- 
hshed  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  as  a  meeting  of  citizens  or  electors  held  f"r  the 
purpose  of  nominating  candidates  for  public  offices,  or  for  making  arrange- 
ments to  secure  their  election.  It  is  a  low  wont,  and  BU]  nip- 
tion — "calkcrs',"  "caulkers',"  meeting— a  term  applied  t<>  electioneer!] 
ings  held  in  a  part  of  Boston  where  all  the  Bbip-l>u  in*  -  was  carried  <>n.  l'r. 
Charles  Mackay  suggests,  in  a  letter  published  in  the  Pafl  '/■>  I  aaarj 
24,  1879,  that  the  true  root  of  the  word  is  to  l>e  found  19  the  <  •  Itic  "oomh" 
(pronounced  "co") — a  prefix  implying  concord  or  agreement  with  and  "euia," 
signifying  cause,  affair,  concern,  bmns  .  procedure,  Ac.  From  ti  . 
"co-cuis,"  or  "caucus" — a  m  pting  of  those  wl  i  frith  the  1  ..s3  in 
band,  whatever  it  may  be — a  packed  meeting,  in  (act 


344  ENGLAND. 

be  seen  that  the  constituency  itself  elects  all  the  committees,  includ- 
ing the  executive,  which  is  therefore  in  direct  communication  with, 
and  responsibility  to,  the  electors.  In  America  the  electors  choose 
the  primary  committees,  the  primary  committees  in  turn  choose  the 
general  committee  or  Caucus,  the  Caucus  chooses  an  executive,  the 
executive  a  sub-committee,  and  the  sub-committee  a  "boss"  or 
chairman,  who  is  thus  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  the  original 
electorate.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  the  importance  of 
the  distinction  thus  established  between  the  English  and  American 
practice. 

America  is  the  home  of  the  Caucus,  and  those  who  support  the 
institution  do  not  deny  the  fact  that  in  America  its  existence  coin- 
cides with  grave  political  mischiefs.  But  they  point  to  the  facts 
already  stated  as  showing  that  the  Caucus  in  America  differs  mate- 
l'ially  from  the  English  organization,  and  they  deny  that,  even  in  its 
American  form,  the  Caucus  is  the  sole  or  mam  cause  of  the  evils 
complained  of.  Thus  it  is  urged  that  if  men  of  inferior  capacity  or 
doubtful  character  find  seats  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  the 
same  thing  is  unfortunately  true  of  other  representative  assemblies, 
and  that  if  a  prize-fighter  once  represented  New  York,  a  member  of 
the  same  profession  not  long  ago  represented  a  borough  in  York- 
shire. Again,  as  Mr.  Chamberlain  points  out  in  an  able  article  on 
the  subject  in  the  Fortnightly  Eeview,  November,  1878,  the  very  fact 
that  the  greater  issues  of  politics  have  long  ago  been  settled  in 
America — to  say  nothing  of  the  absorbing  passion  for  material 
wealth  and  well-being — may  explain  why  many  men  of  education 
refuse  then  share  of  public  duty.  "  A  nation,"  he  writes,  "  which 
has  no  Land  Question,  no  Church  Question,  no  Education  Question, 
and  no  Foreign  Policy,  must  purchase  its  advantages  at  the  price  of 
less  sustained  and  vital  interest  in  its  legislative  work."  Further,  it 
is  pointed  out,  by  way  of  reply  to  the  criticisms  upon  the  Caucus 
derived  from  trans- Atlantic  experience,  "  America  is  foremost  among 
the  nations  of  the  world  in  respect  to  the  wide-spread  intelligence 
of  its  citizens,  the  rapid  development  of  its  resources,  the  general 
respect  for  law  and  order,  and  the  universal  acceptance  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  liberty  and  freedom."  If,  it  is  argued,  all  this  is  comjmti- 
ble  with  the  Caucus,  surely  the  much-execrated  machinery  cannot 
be  so  very  bad. 

Two  remarks  about  the  Caucus  may  be  made  with  confidence. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  it  is  an  extension  of  the  principles  of  party 
government,  and  that  it  tends  to  make  the  political  power  and  wish 
of  the  individual  elector  more  directly  felt.     As  Mr.  Chamberlain 


CROWN  AND    CROWD. 

has  said  in  words  quoted  above,  the  Caucus  is  an  i  i  trument  for  ex- 
pressing and  giving  effect  to  the  will  of  th     m  Ther 
means  the  subordination  of  the  will  of  the  individual  to  the  will  of 
the  many.     But  that  is  what  our  political  party  involve    al- 
ready.    Again,  it  is  the  age  of  association,  and  the  Caucus  is  simply 
an  association   of  ratepayers,  who   are   parliamentary  elector 
secure  a  parliamentary  representative  who  is  fairly  in  accord 
their  views.     They  conceive,  and  experience  seems  to  confirm  the 
view,  that  they  can  secure  this  the  more  certainly  bj  collective  than 
by  isolated  and  individual  action.     Now  comes  the  objection     that 
the  interest  of  the  great  bulk  of  the  electors  in  the  Caucus  will  soon 
nag,  and  that  the  reins  will  pass  into  the  hands  of  half  ;i  d< 
zealous  workers,  who  will  make  politics  an  art  of  which  they  will  ho 
the  sole  masters.     As  Mr.  Chamberlain  and  other  champion     of  the 
system  point  out,  this  anticipation  depends  for  its  fulfillment  on  tho 
hypothesis  that  the  interest  of  the  majority  will  fail  in  the  manner 
predicted.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  are  told  there  is  no  r< 
believe  the  sinister  prophecy.     In  the  chapter  on  Municipal  Gov- 
ernment (Chapter  V.,  page  59),  the  growth  of  an  inten 
citizenship  in  our  great  towns   has  been   traced.     The  men   who 
interest  themselves   in  municipal  business  are  the  nun  who  will 
also  interest  themselves  in  political,  and  to  suppose  that  a  sudden 
paralysis  is  likely  to  overcome  the  energies  of  the  inhabitants  «>f 
these  great  centers  of  industry  is  to  suppose  thai  a  process  which 
has  now  been  steadily  and  swiftly  going  on  for  years  will  he  sud- 
denly and  decisively  arrested. 

Nor  is  it  entirely  reasonable  to  speak  of  the  Caucus  as  over 
ing  the  public  opinion  of  the  constituency  in  which  it  •  ■ 
Caucus  is  public  opinion — not  its  manufacture,  bu1   it  i  • 
It  is,  of  course,  conceivable  that  at  particular  times  and  i  tho 

Caucus  may  find  that  it  has  got  out  of  accord  with  the  public  opin- 
ion which  surrounds  it.  In  this  case,  its  decrees  and  deliberations 
are  an  empty  farce,  and  it  will  be  without  practical  authority  till  it 
has  again  brought  itself  into  harmony  with  the  majority  -  irgan 

it  is. .  The  Caucus  is  thus,  at  least,  repr<  oally  it 

may  be  dominated  by  the  superior  will  and  opinion  of  individuals 
possessed  of  exc  ptional  force  of  character;  but,  then,  s..  ar< 
and  communities,  and  states.    And  it  is  certainly  the  most  ■  genuinely 
representative  variety  of  political  organization  wjhch  has  ever  I 
invented. 

Tie  Conservative  party  has  attempted  in  some  boi  mi- 

tate  the  organization  of  its  opponents,  but   hi!  b 


348  ENGLAND. 

The  traditions  and  practice  of  Conservatism  are  almost  antagonistic 
to  a  democratic  organization  such  as  that  which  we  have  described, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  need  of  any  such  system  is  less,  because 
habits  of  discipline  and  subordination  are  more  common  in  the  Tory 
than  in  the  Liberal  ranks.  "What  the  Caucus  is  to  Liberalism,  that 
the  action  of  political  clubs,  the  deference  paid  to  the  wish  of  local 
coteries  in  the  selection  of  parliamentary  candidates,  are  to  Con- 
servatism. Further,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  Conservatives 
form  a  party  which  is  always,  more  or  less,  organized  on  certain  un- 
mistakable social  and  constitutional  lines.  The  Church,  the  aristoc- 
racy, the  great  interests  of  the  country,  are  each  of  them  organiz- 
ing agencies  with  the  Conservatives.  It  is  only  natural  that  a  greater 
tendency  to  individualism  should  be  developed  amongst  the  Liberals 
than  with  then  opponents,  and  this  tendency  has  resulted  in  the 
multiplication  of  Liberal  candidates  on  the  eve  of  a  contested  elec- 
tion. Hence,  there  has  been  a  division  of  the  party  in  constituen- 
cies which  frequently,  when  the  existence  of  a  Liberal  majority  was 
an  undoubted  fact,  has  been  instrumental  in  bringing  about  a  Con- 
servative victory.  The  Caucus  may  not  be  liked,  it  may  even  be 
dreaded.  Its  associations  are  as  unwelcome  as  its  name.  It  may  be 
most  undesirable  that  any  body,  even  though  composed  of  the  elec- 
tors themselves,  should  stand  between  the  member  of  Parliament 
and  his  constituency.  But  whether  un-English  or  not,  the  Caucus 
exists  and  increases.  At  the  present  time  the  Liberal  party  in  not 
less  than  one  hundred  constituencies  is  organized  on  the  Birming- 
ham model,  and  the  number  is  constantly  growing.  It  may  be  safely 
asserted  that  whatever  other  results  may  follow,  the  bulk  of  the  elec- 
tors having  once  been  taken  into  confidence  and  consulted  in  the 
management  of  the  party  and  choice  of  candidates  will  never  again 
consent  to  go  back  to  the  old  system  of  management  by  cliques  and 
coteries.  Under  the  circumstances  the  only  practical  course  seems 
to  be  to  accept  it  as  a  perhaps  unwelcome,  but  certainly  an  inev- 
itable condition  of  a  democratic  age. 

Let  its  now  trace  this  democratic  principle  of  our  time  a  little 
further,  and  watch  its  influence  on  the  relations  with  the  highest 
question  of  imperial  policy.  For  good  or  for  evil,  it  seems  we  must 
accept  the  democratic  view  of  our  national  policy  not  as  that  which 
is  now  established,  but  as  that  which  will  some  day  or  other  be 
established.  This  oonception  is  very  simple,  and  may  be  readily 
stated.  According  to  it,  just  as  the  individual  is  the  unit  of  the 
town  ward,  so  is  the  town  ward  of  the  town  council,  and  so  is  the 
town  council  of  the  Imperial  Parliament.     Parliament,  ward,  council, 


CROWN  AND    CROWD.  ;;i7 

citizen,  these  are  the  chief  notes  in  the  democratic  scale,  th 
aated  series  by  whose  successive  stages  we  shall  ultimately  an  ii 
the  highest  sovereign  expression  of  the  national  will     This  fact,  the 
ultimate  supremacy  of  the  people — thai  is,  of  the  maj  I         pi- 

rate parts  in  the  fabric  of  their  supremacy  being  those  which  have 
been  already  described — is  not  unrecognized  by  contempt  ites- 

men.  A  very  few  years  ago,  a  Minister  of  State  who  was  then  I 
eign  .Secretary,  in  addressing  a  deputation  waiting  to  learn  the  policy 
of  the  Government  on  foreign  affairs  of  great  moment,  spoke  of  him- 
self and  his  colleagues  as  "waiting  for  instruction  from  their  em- 
ployers"— the  people.  This  expression  of  Lord  Derby's  has  : 
much  criticised,  but  whether  felicitous  or  not,  H  m  I  I  said  to 
represent  the  actual  facts  of  the  case  with  an  undoubted  degree  of 
truth.  The  executive  has  no  appeal  from  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  the  House  of  Commons  is  chosen  bv  the  ratepayera  What  will 
be  the  power  of  these  when  a  new  generation  of  el  has  arisen, 

and  that  a  generation  whose  minds  are  educated,  and  whose  organ- 
ization, whether  by  the  Caucus  or  any  other  instrumentality,  is  com- 
plete, is  the  great  problem  of  the  future.  We  live  under  a  constitu- 
tional monarchy,  which  now  fears  no  shocks  of  r<  volution;  which  is 
absolutely  impotent  to  pass  a  law,  or  to  keep  :i  minister,  against 
whom  the  masses  have  unanimously  declared,  in  place;  which  is  F<  r 
all  practical  purposes  controlled  by  the  democracy.  This  view  of 
the  English  Constitution  will  not  be  found  in  any  of  our  philosophic 
histories,  but  it  is  none  the  less  the  true  view,  and  that  which  he 
forward  English  ministers  must  recognize,  even  though  they  do  not 
care  to  proclaim  it  in  words. 

There  are  several  reasons»why  the  condition  of  things  which  has 
now  been  described  may  be  looked  forward  to  with  comparati 
little  apprehension.     Logically,  the  consequence  of  the  master        ; 
servant  theory,  as  it  has  been  called,  which  Lord  Derby  enunciate  d 
would  be,  as  a  clever  writer  in  a  review  *  has  put  it,  the  submi 
of  all  important  questions  to  the  popular  vote:  "If  Government  is 
not  to  direct  opinion,  but  simply  to  register  its  decrees,  then 
should  be  taken  for  enabling  public  opinion  to  pronounce  ii 
wees  in  the  hearing  of  all  men.     .     .     .     Upon  this  theory  I 
should  have  been  some  means  of  removing  Lord  Derby's  doubt 
the  method  of  plebiscite,  and  the  country  should  have  been  asked  to 
vote  upon  some  proposition,  raising  substantially  (he  issue  wh< 
England  should  defend  the- integrity  and  ind  oi    I 

*  Mr.  H.  D.  Traill,  "The  Democracy  and  Foreign  Policy,"  S 
Nov.,  1878. 


348  ENGLAND. 

against  invasion  by  Eussia."  But  the  master  and  servant  theory, 
though  fundamentally  true,  will  never  involve  a  precarious  appeal 
of  this  kind.  There  are  as  many  checks  upon  the  practice  of  the 
theory  as  upon  constitutional  monarchy  itself.  Some  of  them  are 
to  be  found  in  the  temper,  and  some  in  the  institutions  of  English- 
men. A  nation  which  has  been  trained  during  centuries  in  the 
school  of  deference  and  subordination,  and  which  has  become  habit- 
uated to  a  belief  in  the  good  faith  and  in  the  capacity  of  its  public 
men,  does  not  in  a  moment,  or  indeed  at  all,  throw  off  its  ideas  and 
ways,  in  a  sense  of  elation  at  its  newly  realized  sovereignty.  If  it  is 
henceforth  to  be  more  self -governed  than  ever,  it  has  been  under- 
going for  ages  the  education  which  of  all  others  would  best  qualify 
it  for  that  complete  self-government.  There  is  no  danger  of  house- 
hold suffrage,  even  when  it  includes  the  agricultural  laborers,  re- 
ducing society  in  England  to  its  primitive  atoms,  and  though  the 
basis  of  government  may  have  been  broadened,  there  will  not  be 
as  a  consequence  any  pervading  anarchy  of  administration.  The 
greater  the  multitude,  the  greater  the  influence  of  the  individual, 
and  because  the  English  electorate  and  the  English  proletariate  are 
convertible  terms  the  authority  of  the  English  statesman  will  not  be 
gone.  It  is,  indeed,  conceivable — for  this  is  the  characteristic  of  all 
democracies — that  the  English  constituencies  may  be  more  liable 
than  hitherto  to  be  carried  away  by  sudden  gusts  of  passion  which 
sweep  all  before  them,  and  it  is  precisely  these  inrpulses  which  the 
statesman  will  have  either  to  utilize  or  to  control.  But  because 
some  of  the  forces  with  which  he  has  to  work  are  new,  the  influence 
of  statesmanship  will  not  be  less  than  it  has  always  been  in  England. 
More  insight,  more  courage,  more  candor  may  be  wanted,  and  when 
these  qualities  are  forthcoming  the  authority  of  the  individual  states- 
man and  his  colleagues  will  still  be  paramount.  , 

The  last  attribute  just  named,  that  of  candor,  suggests  one  or 
two  important  considerations  in  the  theory  and  practice  of  English 
statesmanship  under  the  new  democratic  regime.  The  employer 
and  servant  theory  need  not  be  so  interpreted  that  it  requires  the 
perpetual  reference  of  the  policy  of  the  minister  to  the  masses  for 
their  approval.  If  it  is  the  fact  that  the  masses  are  in  the  last  re- 
sort the  arbiters  of  the  position,  it  must  be  desirable  that  ministers 
should  boldly  recognize  the  truth.  What,  then,  is  the  important 
question,  are  the  arts  by  which  the  confidence  and  good  will  of  the 
English  masses  are  to  be  won?  As  were  the  ten-pound  household- 
ers, so  are  the  householders  who  are  only  ratepayers.  But  this, 
though  the  preponderating,  is  only  one  of  several  elements  in  our 


1 


i 


CROWN  AND    CROWD.  319 

modern  democracy.  To  the  working  men  must  be  added  thai  cla 
which  socially  takes  precedence  of  all  others,  and  which  is  aristo- 
cratic and  plutocratic  in  about  equal  degrees:  the  numerous  class 
of  professional  men;  the  commercial  class,  which  will,  of  course,  in- 
clude the  employers  of  labor.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  variety  which 
is  itself  a  guarantee  of  permanence,  and  at  the  same  time  that  there 
is  a  distinct  interfusion  of  orders — it  being  very  often  difficult  to  say 
where  one  class  or  interest  commences  and  another  ends  there  is 
also  a  unity  of  upward  tending  aspiration.  Each  inferior  class,  iu 
other  words,  takes  more  or  less  of  its  color,  wishes,  views,  from  tho 
class  above  it,  and  thus  the  English  Constitution  is  indeed  that  of 
a  democracy,  but  a  democracy  with  a  distinctly  aristocratic  bias. 
Hence  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  we  have  a  twofold  guar- 
antee of  national  stability,  first  that  mutual  association  of  ranks,  with 
a  tendency  unswervingly  felt  in  one  direction;  secondly,  the  docility 
and  enthusiasm  of  the  working  classes  themselves,  if  only  they  are 
dealt  with  in  a  suitable  manner  and  by  rulers  whom  they  instinct- 
ively trust.  All  these  considerations  must  be  borne  in  mind  if  we 
are  either  to  formulate  or  accept  that  employer  and  servant  doctrine 
of  imperial  administration  which  has  just  been  spoken  of.  It  is  es- 
sential not  to  be  misled  by  false  analogies,  but  to  remember  that  as 
is  the  servant — the  governing  class — so  in  the  long  run  will  be  the 
governed. 

But  in  proportion  as  this  statement  is  recognized  as  true  it  is 
necessary  to  insist  on  the  fact  that  a  certain  line  of  treatment  must 
be  pursued  by  those  in  whom  the  administration  of  affairs  is  vested. 
If  our  constitution  be  really  democratic,  yet  not  devoid  of  the  leaven 
of  aristocracy  of  which  we  have  already  spoken,  it  is  clear  that  our 
statesmen  must  not  only  mold  their  policy  according  to  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  case,  but  must  attempt  its  execution  in  such  a  way  as 
to  conciliate  the  approval  and  to  enlist  the  support  of  the  multitude, 
to  whom  in  the  last  resort  the  appeal  lies.  The  methods  which  were 
perfectly  applicable  to  the  conduct  of  national  affairs  before  the 
Reform  Bills  of  1832  and  1867,  when  government  was,  as  has  been 
seen  in  the  preceding  chapter,  a  stately  game  played  by  the  patri- 
cian powers  of  the  United  Kingdom,  are  impossible  now.  The  peo- 
ple have  entered  into  partnership  with  the  aristocracy,  and  they 
must  be  treated  as  partners.  It  is  perfectly  possible  thai  in  specific 
departments  of  statesmanship — foreign  policy  for  instance — the  new 
regime  may  involve  great  difficulties.  Our  statesmen  having  to 
\  reckon  with  a  force  which  exists  as  it  exists  in  England  in  no  other 
country  of  Europe,  may  find  themselves  at  an  obvious  disadvantage 


350  ENGLAND. 

in  the  hour  of  international  crisis,  as  compared  with  the  chancellors 
of  the  Russian  or  the  German  Empires.  Bat  it  argues  a  very  im- 
perfect knowledge  of  the  English  character  to  suppose  that,  if,  at 
anxious  moments  like  these,  the  supreme  direction  of  affairs  is  in 
the  hands  of  men  who  have  the  confidence  of  the  masses — men  of 
whom  Lord  Palmerston  has  been  the  most  conspicuous  type  during 
the  past  fifty  years — the  democracy  will  claim  to  act  upon  that  em- 
ployer and  servant  doctrine  in  which  so  much  of  peril  has  heen 
discerned.  There  is  surely  more  of  permanent — less  of  mere  frothy 
and  evanescent — enthusiasm,  which  the  statesman  may  regard  as 
the  most  precious  of  aU  political  capital,  in  the  English  people  than 
among  any  other  nation  of  the  world.  But  it  is  only  placed  at  the 
disposal  of  those  who  deal  openly  and  fairly  with  the  people,  and 
whom,  in  return,  the  people  delight  to  trust.  Has  this  mode  of 
dealing  with  the  masses  in  these  grave  matters  ever  been  fairly 
tried  and  failed?  The  democracy  may  be  as  mischievous  an  im- 
pediment in  the  way  of  a  great  foreign  policy  as  it  has  been  taunted 
with  being,  if  approached  in  a  spirit  of  selfish  timidity,  temporizing 
vacillation,  or  mistimed  reticence.  Indignation  meetings  are  held, 
demonstrations  are  organized,  agitations  are  set  on  foot,  the  chiefs 
of  the  Government  complain  that  they  are  paralyzed  by  a  factious 
opposition.  But  may  they  not  be  in  some  degree  responsible  for 
this  opposition?  Is  it  not  possible  that  they  may  in  the  first  in- 
stance have  been  wanting  in  the  resolution — fearful  to  hazard  the 
compactness  of  their  majority — to  tell  the  people  what  is  the  ex- 
penditure and  what  the  military  measures  indispensable  in  their 
opinion,  to  uphold  the  dignity  and  strength  of  the  empire  ?  Is  it 
unreasonable  to  suppose  that  the  Minister  representing  to  the  En- 
glish people  the  qualities  identified  with  Palmerston,  who  should 
rise  in  his  place  in  Parliament  and  say  that  such-and-such  taxation 
was  necessary  to  insure  a  minimum  of  naval  and  military  efficiency, 
would  find  no  reluctance  to  supply  him  with  the  funds;  or  that  the 
minister  who  should  insist  upon  the  danger  of  prematurely  disclos- 
ing confidential  negotiations  would  not  fail  to  carry  his  point?  The 
real  peril  would  seem  to  come  not  so  much  from  the  fact  that  the 
democracy  is  in  the  last  instance  master  of  the  position,  as  from 
the  chance  that  this  fact  may  not  be  sufficiently  recognized. 

The  very  working  of  the  English  Constitution  is  in  itself  a  power- 
ful force  for  the  education  and  the  discipline  of  the  masses.  For 
practical  purposes  this  Constitution  must,  as  Mr.  Bagehot  has  well 
pointed  out,  be  divided  not  into  the  three  estates  of  the  realm,  not 
into  judicial,  executive,  or  legislative  departments,  but  into  two  por- 


CROWN   AND    CROWD. 

tions,  the  dignified  part,  n(  the  head  <>f  which  is  the  Queen,  and  the 
efficient  part,  ai  the  head  of  which  is  the  Pxime  minister.  The  - 
ereign,  says  Mr.  Bagehot,  is  the  fountain  of  honor,  bui  the^Treaaurv 
is  the  source  of  business.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  tin  Prune  Minis- 
ter's tenure  of  office  depends  on  his  majority  in  the  Qousi  of  Com- 
mons, it  is  clear  that  the  representatives  of  the  people,  and  in  the 
last  resort  the  constituencies  who  elect  them,  are  supreme  in  that 
portion  of  the  Constitution  to  which  has  been  applied  the  epithet 
i  .  nt.  The  Cabinet  is  thus  a  committee  for  the  ml  ministration 
of  the  empire,  whose  members  have  for  the  time  being  the  confi- 
dence of  that  popular  assembly,  which  itself  is  the  mirror  and  em- 
bodiment  of  the  popular  will.  Hence  there  is  an  interchi  i  of 
influence  between  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  multitude  out- 
side, which  is  its  creator.  As  the  speeches  made  in  the  ll"us(. 
reflect  national  opinion,  so  do  the  debates  which  take  place  in  that 
House  educate  the  national  mind.  Conscious  of  their  j>  iwer  to 
control  the  action  of  the  Cabinet,  and  to  regenerate  the  elective 
legislature,  the  constituencies  often  read,  and  sometimes  digest,  the 
speeches  made  at  Westminster,  and  reported  for  their  benefit  in 
the  morning  newspapers.  There  is  thus  no  divorce  between  the 
active  current  of  a  people's  life  and  the  political  life  of  its  1<  gislators 
under  a  Cabinet  system  of  government,  the  Cabinet  being  dependent 
on  the  popular  Chamber.  Under  the  presidential  Bystem  the  con- 
ditions are  exactly  reversed,  and  "  a  nation  has.  except  ai  the  el<  ct- 
ing  moment,  no  influence:  it  has  not  the  ballot-box  before  it;  it; 
virtue  is  gone,  and  it  must  wait  till  its  instant  of  d  m  again 

returns.     It  is  not  invited  to  form  an  opinion  like  a  nation  mid  r  a 
Cabinet  government;  nor  is  it  instructed  like  such  a  nation     There 
are,  doubtless,  debates  in  the  legislature,  but   they  are  pi 
without  a  play.     There  is  nothing  of  a  catastrophe  about  them,  you 
cannot  turn  out  the  government."* 

While  thus  in  one  sense  it  maybe  said  that  as  a   p  mil    of  its 
structure  the  English   Constitution  is  more  democratic,  inasmuch  as 
it  gives  the  masses  more  direct  power  over  the  action  of  the  1 
lature  than  that  of  the  American  Republic,  the  conditions  of  this 
structure  also  insure  a  steady  and  continuous  exerci  lu<  aces, 

which,  if  they  are  not  aristocratic,  arc  at  least  anti-democratio,  np  m 
the  multitude.     At  the  present  time  the  composition  of  th     11 
of  Commons  is  more  dissimilar,  p<  rhaps,  than  it  ever  was  I 
the  House  of  Lords.     It  is  plutocratic  rather  than  i  atic,  but 

•  "The  English  Constitution, M  p.  8L 


352  ENGLAND. 

the  tendency  in  England  is  for  plutocracy  to  assume  more  and  more 
of  an  aristocratic  complexion.  Add  to  this  that  the  House  of  Lords 
is  being  j)erpetually  recruited  from  men  whose  presence  is  the  most 
distinctive  feature  in  the  House  of  Commons,  men  of  lowly  origin 
who  have  acquired  position  and  money  by  their  exertions  and  tal- 
ents, by  success  in  commerce  and  trade,  and  enough  will  have  been 
said  to  show  that  however  marked  the  contrast  between  the  two 
Chambers,  there  will  from  the  necessities  of  the  case  always  be  a 
gradual  approximation.  It  is  the  more  necessary  to  bear  this  in 
mind,  because,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  political  opinion  of  the 
working  classes  is  becoming  more  and  more  organized,  and  we  may 
at  any  moment  expect  to  witness  an  accentuation  of  the  differences 
that  exist  between  the  personality  and  the  prerogative  of  the  two 
Houses,  or  between  certain  sections  of  the  members  of  those  Houses. 
We  must  never  forget  that  the  force  of  repulsion  is  accompanied  by 
a  compensating  force  of  attraction,  and  that  while  the  working  men 
and  artisans  are  intent  upon  securing  direct  representation  for  their 
interests  at  Westminster,  these  representatives,  when  they  have  been 
returned  to  Parliament,  will  come  within  the  circle  of  influences  more 
or  less  the  reverse  of  popular.  It  is  this  fusion  of  influences  and 
classes,  go  where  we  may,  in  social  life  or  political,  in  the  market- 
place or  the  assembly,  in  the  club  or  at  the  dinner-table,  which  is 
the  guarantee  of  our  political  stability  and  our  security  against  rev- 
olutionary changes.  We  have,  in  a  word,  what  would  be  the  most 
democratic  Constitution  in  the  world,  were  the  democracy  itself 
practically  to  assert  its  sovereign  power,  working  in  the  most  aris- 
tocratic manner. 

Lastly,  we  come  to  the  consideration  of  the  relations  in  which 
the  Crown  stands  towards  the  multitude  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
executive  indirectly  nominated  by  the  multitude  on  the  other.  Ac- 
cording to  the  letter  of  the  English  Constitution,  the  Crown  and  the 
executive  are  convertible  terms.  According  to  the  theory  of  the 
Constitution,  the  Sovereign  can  exercise  of  his  or  her  own  accord  a 
variety  of  powers,  any  one  of  which  would  precipitate  a  revolution. 
When,  in  1871,  the  Queen  abolished  purchase  in  the  army  by  an  act 
of  prerogative  (after  the  Lords  had  rejected  the  Bill)  there  was  great 
and  general  astonishment.  "  But,"  says  Mr.  Bagehot,  "  this  is  noth- 
ing to  what  the  Queen  can  do  by  law  without  consulting  Parliament. 
Not  to  mention  other  things,  she  could  disband  the  army  (by  law 
she  cannot  engage  more  than  a  certain  number  of  men,  but  she  is 
not  obliged  to  engage  any  men);  she  could  dismiss  all  the  officers, 
from  the  general  commanding-in-chief  downwards;  she  could  dis- 


CROWN  AND    CROWD. 

miss  all  the  sailors  too;  she  could  Bell  offal]  our  ships  of  war  and  all 
our  naval  stores;  she  could  make  a  peace  by  the  sacrifice  of  Corn- 
wall, and  begin  a  war  for  the  conquest  of  Brittany.     She  could  mi 

every  citizen  in  the  United  Kingdom,  male  and  female,  a  pe  it;  she 
could  make  every  parish  in  the  United  Kingdom  a  university  ;  she 
could  dismiss  most  of  the  civil  servants;  she  could  pardon  all 
fenders.  In  a  word,  the  Queen  could,  by  prerogative,  opsel  all  the 
action  of  civil  government  within  the  Government;  could  disgrace 
the  nation  by  a  bad  war  or  peace;  and  could,  by  disbanding  our 
forces,  whether  land  or  sea,  leave  us  defenseless  again 
nations." 

If  we  contrast  with  the  theoretical  powers  of  the  Sovereign  tl 
actually  exercised  in  the  relations  between  the  monarch  and  the. 
monarch's  ministers,  the  facts  may  be  put  in  a  very  few  words.  It 
is  for  the  Sovereign  to  know  the  policy  which  ministers  ma;,  be  < 
ecuting  or  deliberating,  and  to  exercise,  if  she  so  desires,  the  right 
of  encouraging,  counseling,  warning.  The  choice  of  its  ministers  is 
the  privilege  of  the  Crown,  but  this  choice  can  only  be  exercised 
within  certain  narrow  limits.  Practically,  the  constituencies  decide 
who  the  Premier  shall  be,  and  the  Premier  selects  his  colleagues  in 
accordance  with  the  political  exigencies  of  the  time.  But  though 
the  Sovereign  does  not  possess,  or  does  not  actively  exercise,  the 
power  of  direct  political  initiative,  she  has  immense  political  influ- 
ence, and  is  charged  with  grave  political  duties.  Here,  again,  v.  .■ 
have  another  illustration  of  the  remark  that,  where  there  is  knowl- 
edge there  will  be  power.  The  Sovereign  whose  mind  is  a  store- 
house of  political  history  and  precedents  necessarily  all.  its,  and 
frecpiently  in  a  very  important  degree,  the  action  of  succ 
generations  of  ministers.  Moreover,  the  Sovereign  is  the  head  • 
only  of  the  Government,  but  of  the  society  of  the  realm.  The  En- 
glish Courtis  still  the  greatest  social  institution  in  Great  Britain:  the 
'  arts  of  the  courtier  are  up  to  this  day  diligently  studied  and  ard- 
uously practiced.  In  a  community  dominated,  as  the  English  com- 
munity is,  by  the  aristocratic  principle,  it  is  inevitable  that  the  So*  - 
ereign  should  always  have  much  power.  A  constitutional  her< 
monarchy  may  sometimes  be  compared  to  the  presidency  of  a  repub- 
lic, but  in  reality  it  is  endowed  with  attributes  generically  distinct 
So  long  as  society  and  politics  act  and  react  on  each  other,  the 
authority  of  the  Sovereign  will  never  become  a  fiction  or  ad  I 
letter. 

But  independently  of  the  official  duties  of  the  Sovereign  and  'I 
political  power  of  which,  as  a  consequence  of  her  exalted  station,  she 
23 


354  ENGLAND. 

is  tlie  depositary,  the  Crown  is  the  symbol  of  a  national  unity,  the 
force  of  which  is  deeply  felt  by  the  masses.  Monarchy  is  a  strong 
government  in  proportion  as  it  is  an  intelligible  government.  It  is 
not  an  abstraction,  it  is  a  concrete  embodiment  of  power.  "When 
the  English  multitude  gazes  upon  its  Sovereign  it  is  conscious  that 
it  beholds  an  august  personification  of  the  principle  of  its  rule. 
This  is  not  the  only  way  in  which  the  existing  English  Constitution 
appeals  vividly  to  the  imagination.  "A  family  on  the  throne,"  writes 
Mr.  Bagehot,  "  is  an  interesting  idea  also.  It  brings  down  the  fruits 
of  sovereignty  to  the  level  of  petty  life.  ...  To  state  the  mat- 
ter shortly.  Royalty  is  a  government  in  which  the  attention  of  the 
nation  is  concentrated  on  one  person  doing  interesting  actions.  A 
republic  is  a  Government  on  which  that  attention  is  divided  between 
many  who  are  all  doing  uninteresting  actions.  Accordingly,  so  long 
as  the  human  heart  is  strong  and  the  human  reason  weak,  royalty 
will  be  strong  because  it  appeals  to  diffused  feelings,  and  republics 
weak  because  they  appeal  to  the  understanding."  These  are  the 
main  practical  elements  in  the  strength  of  the  English  monarchy. 
It  is  a  great  political  and  a  great  social  force,  because  it  accords 
with  the  genius  of  the  English  people  and  the  feelings  of  human 
nature  itself. 


CHAPTER   XXI. 

OFFICIAL     ENGLAND, 

The  Groat  Offices  of  State— Their  External  Aspect— Their  Interna]    M 

ment— History   of   an    Official    Paper    The    Colonial    Office     rhe    !n.li,» 
Office— The  Foreign  Office— Board  of  TrC     Th<     I  v     l'ri  %  . 

cil  Office— Business  done  at  Privy  Council— The  Cabinet     Ifntnal    B 
tions  of  Cabinet  Ministers— Cabin       i       tednre  -General  Yi>  v.  ol    I 
Minister  of  State — Non-official  Con.    pondi  oc     i   o  iv<  >1  bj  Mi  mbera  of  the 
Government. 

NO  more  ambitious  pile  of  buildings  lias  been  added  to  the  capita] 
of  the  British  Empire  than  that  which  meets  the  gaze  of  the 
spectator  as  lie  walks  down  Whitehall     On  the  right  hand  aide,  as 
he  goes  in  the  direction  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  he  will 
successively  the  offices  of  the  Treasury  and  the  1'riw  Council  Office, 
an  old  building  with  a  new  and  imposing  facade,  and  an  <-\\< 
block  of  stately  structures,  which  comprises  under  one   roof  tho 
Home,  Colonial,  Foreign,  and  India  Officea     By  the  Bide  of  t'< 
the  official  residences  of  the  Prime  Minister  and  Chancellor  of  tho 
Exchequer,  in  Downing  Street,  present  but  a  mean  appearance. 
Even  Downing  Street  itself — that  historic  thoroughfare  which   has 
represented  the  great  prize  in  a  long  series  of  political  stru 
threatens  to  disappear,  and  it  is  probable  thai  before  another  fifty 
years  have  elapsed,  not  one  of  those  houses  which,  less  than  a  cen- 
tury ago,  sufficed  for  the  conduct  of  nearly  the  entire  businet       I 
the  State,  will  be  left  standing.     By  thai   time  we  shall   probably 
have  a  material  addition  made  to  the  group  of  edifices  in  which 
the  offices  above  named  are  domiciled,  designed  upon  a  Bcale  not 
l<  Scent,  and  concentrated,  without  break  or  interruption, 

within  one  and  the  same  augusl  precinct. 

What,  it  may  be  asked,  is  the  nature  of  the  business  transact    l 
within  these  buildings,  and  what  its  routine ?    Whal  are  th<  i 

of  administration  which  maj  b     iiccessively  observed  in  the  diffei 
rtment8  of  the  structure?  how  is  the  influence  of  the  outer  world 
■  own  in  the  official  pi  uetralia?  and  how  are  the  d 
ioned  which,  emanating  from  an  area  of  at  most  a  f--v. 


356  EXGLAND. 

t:  1  to  every  quarter  of  an  empire  which  is  a  synonym  for 

civilization  ?  In  endeavoring  to  give  an  answer  to  these  questions 
it  may  be  remarked  at  the  outset  that  there  is  one  type  of  manage- 
ment to  which  the  administration  of  the  different  great  offices  of 
8  te  generally  conforms.  That  it  is  more  closely  adhered  to  in 
gome  departments  than  in  others  necessarily  follows  from  the  kind 
of  business  transacted  in  each.  In  giving  priority  to  the  Colonial 
Office  and  the  conduct  of  its  affairs  we  are  guided  by  a  wish  to 
present  the  reader  with  what  may  be  called  a  pattern  of  the  way 
in  which,  in  an  office  divided  into  several  distinct  sections,  the  busi- 
1.  -s  of  the  nation  is  done.  !No  department  is  so  suitable  for  an 
illustration  as  this,  because  within  it  is  transacted  every  sort  of 
official  and  administrative  business.  Independently  of  the  specially 
difficult  relations  between  the  mother  country  and  its  dependencies, 
those  dependencies  have  to  be  advised  or  directed  on  all  subjects — 
foreign  affairs,  international  and  domestic  law,  finance,  public  works 
— in  short,  the  whole  duty  of  government. 

Let  it  be  supposed,  then,  that  the  dispatches  and  official  letters, 
both  from  England  and  other  parts  of  the  world,  are  pouring  in 
during  the  hours  of  the  early  morning.  It  is  at  the  Registry  Office 
that  these  documents  first  come  within  the  official  horizon.  Here 
t"  are  are  assistant  clerks  who  mechanically  open  all  the  contents  of 
the  letter  and  dispatch  bags,  which  are  obviously  of  a  more  or  I 
t  fficial  character.  It  is  not  then-  business  to  make  themselv- 
curately  acquainted  with  their  contents.  They  are  expected  to  do 
Eothing  more  than  to  gain  just  such  a  general  idea  of  their  purport 
and  character  as  will  enable  them  to  get  a  title  for  the  official  docket 
of  the  correspondence.  To  this  eorresjiondenee  is  attached,  by  the 
Registry  Office  clerks,  a  large  paper  for  the  writing  of  minutes,  on 
which  xhQi  day  of  receipt  is  inscribed.  The  second  stage  in  the  his- 
tory of  our  official  paper  is  its  transit  from  the  Registry  Office  to  the 
Lead  of  one  of  the  departments  into  which  the  entire  organization 
i.  divided;  those  departments,  in  the  case  of  the  Colonial  Office, 
1  ing,  with  the  single  exception  of  that  which  deals  with  gen-.  I 
1  i  -mess,  arranged  on  geographical  principles.  Having,  then,  been 
duly  entered  in  the  Registry  book,  the  dispatch  or  correspondence 
is  forwarded  to  the  principal  clerk  at  the  head  of  the  department  to 
which  it  immediately  refers.  This  official  examines  it  with  a  view 
of  seeing,  in  the  first  instance,  whether  it  is  of  an  urgent  nature, 
demanding  precedence  over  other  business,  and  whether  it  requires 
lor  its  proper  comprehension  any  reference  to  previous  transactions. 
I_  the  lai    .     ase  he  at  once  places  it  in  the  hands  of  one  of  his 


OFFICIAL    ENGLAND. 

juniors,  with  instructions  to  collect,  and.  if  t  make  B  pn     I 

of,  the  correspondence  containing  the  history  of  those  negotiations; 
or  if  -the  task  is  one  of  particular  nicety,  and  calls  for  tin  i  of 

special  knowledge  of  precedents,  the  departmental  princip 

probably  take  it  in  hand  himself. 

Tims  furnished  with  all  supplementary  matter  necessary  for  a 
right  understanding  of  the  case  in  each  of  its  bearings,  the  docu- 
ment advances  a  step  nearer  to  the  ken  of  the  gnat  man  who  pre- 
sides over  the  working  oi  the  whole  office.  It  comes,  as  minui  I 
and  prepared  in  the  department,  before  one  of  the  .Wsistant  Under- 
Secretaries,  each  of  whom  has  assigned  to  him  a  special  Bphere  f 
work,  and  who,  after  having  carefully  perused  the  papers  now  sub- 
mitted, writes  his  own  comments  and  views  in  the  shape  of  another1 
minute,  and  sends  the  whole  budget,  which,  ever  since  its  introduc- 
tion to  the  office,  has  been  gradually  growing  in  bulk,  to  the  Perma- 
nent Under-Secretary  of  State.  It  is  to  be  noticed  thai  it  is,  at  this 
stage — namely,  when  the  correspondence  first  comes  within  the 
secretarial  purview — that  the  element  of  official  discretion  begins 
If  it  is  perfectly  plain  that  no  decision  has  to  be  taken  upon  the 
papers,  and  that  the  course  of  action  is  simple,  as,  for  instance,  to 
refer,  or  transmit  to  another  department  of  State,  then  it  may  be 
conjectured  that  the  room  of  the  Assistant  Under-Secretary  will  '.>•■ 
the  limit  of  the  official  progress  of  the  paper.  For  the  most  part) 
however,  there  is  no  summarv  arrest  before  the  Permanent  Under- 
Secretary  is  reached.  It  is.  indeed,  the  constitutional  theory  that 
all  communications  addressed  to  a  Secretary  of  State  on  questions 
of  the  public,  service  are  laid  before  the  Sovereign — in  other  words; 
to  adapt  the  tradition  to  the  ways  and  Language  of  responsible  gOT-« 
eminent,  are  personally  considered  by  the  Secretary  of  Stab — and 
it  maybe  said,  with  perfect  confidence,  that  whenever  any  port  i 
of  this  miscellaneous  correspondence  is  found  to  involve  any  tl. 
more  than  mechanical  action  in  accordance  with  previously  d<  I 

principles,  it  comes  under  the  eye  of  the  Secretary  oi  State.     \\ '! 
on  the  other  hand,  the  point  to  which  the  correspondence  relab      I 
practically  settled  by  well-established  precedents,  and  there  can 
no  doubt  as  to  the  decision,  the  Under-Secretary  may  fairly  assu 
the  duties  of  an  ultimate-  court  of  jurisdiction.      Possibly  We  should 
not  be  far  wrong  if  we  were  to  say  that  tins  contingi  ncy  is  red:      I 
iu  about  half  the  number  of  cases  that  come  forward. 

There  is  yet  one  further  experience  which  it  will  acquire  : 
.    our  typical  communication  from  the  other  side  of  the  world  reaches 
the  audience  chamber  of  the  Queen's  direct  repr*  ve     it  had 


358  ENGLAND. 

to  pass  into  the  hands  of  the  Parliamentary  Under-Secretary.  It 
should  be  understood,  however,  that  this  is  not  a  necessary  incident 
in  the  life  of  such  an  official  document  as  we  are  now  considering. 
Supposing  that  the  business  is  pressing,  and  that  the  Parliamentary 
Under-Secretary  is  otherwise  engaged,  the  paper  would  pass  direct 
from  the  Permanent  Under-Secretary  to  the  political  chief  of  the 
department,  and,  in  fact,  in  all  offices  of  State  these  two  functionaries 
are  the  pivots  upon  which  the  whole  system  of  administration  turns; 
in  all  offices  the  Parliamentary  and  the  Permanent  Under-Secreta- 
ries have  co-ordinate  power.  Their  relation  is  thus  one  of  mutual 
supplement,  and  while  it  is  the  business  of  the  parliamentary  deputy 
of  the  Secretary  of  State,  who  is  for  the  most  part  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  to  attend  to  the  progress  of  measures  which  concern  the 
department  in  Parliament,  it  is  especially  the  function  of  the  Per- 
manent Under  Secretary  to  supply  his  chief  with  the  facts  and  pre- 
cedents which  form  the  data  on  which  his  opinion  is  based.  In 
other  words,  the  Permanent  Under-Secretary  of  State  has  to  know 
and  the  Secretary  of  State  himself  has  to  decide. 

Coming  now  to  the  work  of  the  eminent  politician  or  statesman 
who  is  the  apex  of  the  entire  official  system  of  a  great  department, 
let  us  see  what  are  the  duties  which  it  rests  with  him  to  discharge, 
and  how  he  discharges  them.  Supposing  he  is  in  London,  two  or 
three  dispatch  boxes  closely  packed  with  official  documents  are  de- 
livered at  his  house,  as  soon  as  the  office  has  closed  for  the  evening. 
At  any  hour  except  meal  times  he  may  be  found  closeted  in  his  study 
with  these.  Selecting  first  those  papers  which  are  marked  as  "  de- 
manding urgency,"  and  proceeding  to  the  examination  of  the  differ- 
ent sheets  of  the  manuscript  "minutes"  or  observations  attached  to 
them,  he  finds  that  they  are  charged  with  great  diversity  of  opinion. 
Between  these  conflicting  views  he  has  to  decide,  and  as  his  decision 
is,  such  will  be  the  tenor  of  the  dispatch  which  is  ultimately  based 
upon  it;  and,  indeed,  it  is  probable  that  at  each  successive  stage 
something  like  the  rough  draft  of  an  answer  has  been  drawn  up  by 
the  different  officials  to  whom  the  papers  have  one  after  another 
been  submitted.  Consequently,  the  reply  finally  approved  of  is  often 
nothing  more  than  a  fine  specimen  of  official  mosaic.  The  Secre- 
tary of  State,  it  may  be  assumed,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  adopts 
the  form  of  answer  which  has  been  suggested  by  the  Under-Secre- 
tary, with  certain  modifications,  as  the  latter  also,  with  modifications, 
may  have  adopted  that  of  his  immediate  subordinate. 

By  twelve  o'clock,  the  chief  of  the  department,  seated  probably 
in  his  library,  has  gone  through  this  portion  of  his  work;  he  then 


OFFICIAL    ENGLAND, 

returns  all  the  documents  which  he  has  examined  to  his  prh  it 
rotary  at  his  office.    The  papers  are  then  sent  back  throu  :h  I 
,  same  succession  of  hands  as  that  through  which  they  have  pr<  rioualy 
passed,  and  thus  ultimately  the  replj  is  drafted    Theentir*  • 
occupies  less  time  than  from  this  description  might   be  supp       i 
The  different  Btages  here  i  raced  may,  in  ordinary  matters,  i 
formed  in  a  couple  of  days,  and  in  ?erj   few  occupy  more 
week,    When  the  Secretary  of  State  is  in  the  country  I 
course,  a  little  less  promptitude.     Bags   containing  official  docu- 
ments are  sent  to  him  daily,  the  hour  of  (heir  actual  dispatch  from 
the  head-quarters  at  Whitehall  being  late,  as  th<  po 
close  until  7  p.  m.,  when  the  colonial  mails  are  Bent  oil*. 

Muck  the  same  routine  that  has  been  described  in  the  case  "f 
the  Colonial  Office  is  observed  in  the  department  which  deals  with 
the  affairs  of  our  Indian  Empire.     The  correspondence  which  ma 
its  way  hither  may  be  classed  under  two  heads:  first,  that  relating 
to   the   Government  of  India  itself;    secondly,   the   eommunic.it  i 
that  originate  in  England,  and  that  pass  either  between  the  [ndia 
Office  and  other  departments  of  State,  such  as  the   Foreign  Offii 
the  Colonial  Office,  the  Board  of  Trade,  and  the  War  I  ■  or  be- 

tween the  India  Office  and  private  individuals  interested  in  Indian 
affairs.  Again,  the  Indian  correspondence  itself  is  of  two  kinds: 
first,  the  ordinary  dispatches  which  come,  is  ever}  r  ii< »m 

the  Government  of  India,  or  the  Government  of  Madras  and  Bom* 
bay,  the  Lieutenant-Governors  not  corresponding  directly  with 
Home  Government;  secondly,  the  secret  dispatches  which  p 
rectly  between  the  Government  of  India  and  the  Secretary  ol 
As  at  the  Colonial  Office  so  also  at  the  [ndia  Office,  then  o- 

tral  register  to  which,  as  a  rule,  dispatches  go.     Th  b,  howei 

many  important  exceptions,  and  documents  relating  to  politics  or 
finance  would  go,  in  the  first  instance,  not  to  the  register,  hut  to 
that  department  with  which  they  are   immediately  concei  lit- 

ical,  secret,  financial,  public  works,   military,  as  the  case   may  be. 
They  are  of  course  opened  by  the  secretaries  of  the  department  to 
which  they  belong,  and  these  officials  ]>ut  forward  the  papers  win  n- 
ever  they  like.     After  this  they  pass  successively  through  the  bai 
of  the  Under-Secretary — permanent  or  parliamentary,  ac  to 

the  nature  of  the  communication     the  Secretary  of  £  i  com- 

mittee of  the  Council  especially  told  off  to  consider  documents  of 
the  class  to  winch  this  one  belongs,  and  finally,  the  Council  it-.  If  in 
full  conei  sembled.     But  the  powers  of  the  Council  are  delib- 

erative, an  1  it  may  be  added  obstructive,  a.s  well  as  execu  I  ho 


360  ENGLAND. 

power  of  obstruction  is  .not  necessarily  mischievous.  It  is  often  ex- 
ercised, and  is  intended  to  be  exercised,  as  a  check  on  rash  and  ill- 
considered  action. 

In  the  Foreign  Office  a  very  different  mode  of  procedure  is  ren- 
dered necessaiy.  A  majority  of  the  documents  received  here  are  of 
a  more  or  less  confidential  character,  and,  as  a  consequence,  the 
opening  of  the  contents  of  the  dispatch  bags  is  not  delegated  to 
sabordinate  employes,  but  is  performed  by  some  high  official.  Who 
this  official  may  be  varies  according  to  circumstances — the  deciding 
circumstances  mainly  being  the  view  the  Secretary  of  State  takes  of 
the  limit  of  his  responsibilities,  an  arrangement  that  may  be  arrived 
at  between  the  Secretary  and  Under-Secretary,  or  the  personal  appe- 
tite for  work  which  either  may  possess.  Thus  at  one  time  we  are 
told  of  a  Permanent  Under-Secretary  of  State,  who  takes  a  pride  in 
remaining  at  the  office  daily  thl  8  p.  m.,  in  order  that  he  may  depart 
with  the  consciousness  of  having  broken  the  seals  of  two  hundred 
envelopes.  At  another  time  rej)ort  tells  us  of. a  Secretary  of  State 
who  would  allow  no  letter  or  communication  of  any  kind  to  be 
opened  by  any  one  save  himself;  and  who  insisted  on  dictating  an- 
swers to  all  the  correspondence  which  poured  in.  Hence,  too,  it 
may  be  correctly  inferred  that  there  is  not  at  the  Foreign  Office  any 
thing  like  the  same  system  of  minuting  correspondence  that  exists 
elsewhere.  The  entire  department  is  divided  into  what  was  for- 
merly called  the  Establishment,  but  what  has  been  rechristened  the 
Diplomatic  Establishment,  and  departments  not  on  the  Establish- 
ment. The  new  name  is  intended  to  distinguish  the  Diplomatic  Es- 
tablishment from  the  Librarian's  Department,  the  Treaty  Depart- 
ment, and  the  Chief  Clerk's.  In  the  Diplomatic  Establishment, 
where  a  total  of  forty-one  clerks  are  employed,  the  Chief  Clerk 
has  a  department  of  his  own,  with  twenty  clerks  under  him,  who 
are  not  themselves  on  the  Diplomatic  Establishment,  and  whose 
work  is  mainly  of  a  financial  character.  Next — still  on  the  Diplo- 
matic Establishment — there  is  the  Consular  Department,  presided 
over  by  the  Superintendent  of  the  Consular  and  Slave-trade  De- 
partment, and  subdivided  into  two  sections:  the  first  charged 
with  all  correspondence  and  other  matters  relating  to  the  slave- 
trade,  the  second  having  to  do  with  the  Consular  Service  corre- 
spondence. Lastly,  there  is  the  Commercial  Department.  The 
more  purely  diplomatic  portion  of  the  Foreign  Office  is  subdivided 
into  five  departments,  which  are  distributed  geographically,  and 
which  are  under  the  control  of  a  senior  clerk.  Naturally  the  busi- 
ness transacted  in  all  of  these  is  of  a  strictly  confidential  character 


OFFICIAL    ENGLAND. 

and  includes  every  thing  that  appertains  to   the    m  >n   ol 

treaties. 

We  now  come  to  the  Treaty  Department,  which  is  nut  on  the 
/    Diplomatic  Establishment,  and  which  is  occupied  with  the  formal 
drafting  and  engrossing  of  documents  which  have  already  (-"in.) 
under  the  scrutiny  of  the  confidential  officers  of  that  a  .in  an. 

The  Treaty  Department  is  a  Black  Letter  Department,  and  tl 
who  are  employed  in  it  bear  much  the  same  relation  to  the  diplo- 
matic staff  as  the  lawyer's  clerk  who  engrosses  the  do  d  to  the  law- 
yer who  is  the  confidential  adviser.  Even  the  head  of  I  .1  depart- 
ment, though  personal  merit,  and  the  technical  experience  which  he 
may  have  acquired,  often  cause  him  to  be  the  depositary  of  i 
amount  of  confidence,  is  not,  in  virtue  of  his  office,  admitted  into 
the  secrets  of  the  Diplomatic  Establishment  The  relative  positions 
of  the  two  cannot  be  better  illustrated  than  by  sa\  ing  that,  whereas 
members  of  the  Diplomatic  Establishment  are,  -  I 

members  of  the  St.  James's  Club,  members  of  the  Treaty  Depart- 
ment have  to  submit  to  the  ordinary  ballot.  Of  course,  clerks  <>f 
the  Treaty  Department  of  the  Foreign  Office  are  trusted  do!  t<>  di- 
vulge the  tenor  of  the  papers  which  they  are  employed  to  copy  and 
reduce  to  official  order;  but  their  functions  arc  not  confidential  in 
the  same  way  as  those  of  the  clerks  in  the  Diploma;  at 

It  is  only  when  treaties  are  ripe  for  parchments,  or  when  precedents 
and  historical  data  are  required  in  the  composition  of  tie. dies,  that 
the  offices  of  this  department  are  invoked,  and  the  Bimple  circum- 
stance that  it  is  the  sole  department  in  which  hired  writers 
engaged  is  sufficient  proof  that  its  sphere  is  generically  different 
from  that  of  the  Diplomatic  Establishment. 

"While  the  Privy  Council  Office  may  be  spoken  of  as  the  fori 
head  and  mother  of  departments,  the  foremost  place  in  the  official 
hierarchy  may,  on  some  accounts,  be  claimed  by  the  Treasury.  It 
is  the  Treasury  which  has  the  power  of  the  purse  over  all  other 
departments,  and  with  which,  as  a  consequence,  the  ultimate 
sion  rests.  The  Treasury,  moreover,  in  addition  to  being  the  estab- 
lishment where  the  annual  Budget   is  made  up,  has  immediately 

I    subject  to  it  the  two  great  Reserve  Departments  -tb  ms  and 

the  Inland  Revenue — as  well  as  the   Post-office,  which  Lb  only  acci- 
dentally a  source  of  reserve,  while  the  Treasury  is  practit  all; 
in  point  of  power.     The  Privy  Council  Office  is  unquestionably  >"\- 

\    ereign  in  respect  of  dignity.     It  may.  in  effect,  I"    re  yarded         I 
species-''  ■•  ion  for  tin  ise  of  certain  |  thai 

are  essentially  part  of  the  power  of  the  Crown.     The  work  done  by 


3G2  ENGLAND. 

the  Board  of  Trade  and  the  Judicial  Committee  is  delegated  to  them 
by  and  from  the  Privy  Council,  while,  till  quite  recently,  the  busi- 
ness of  the  Education  Department  was  transacted  by  a  committee  of 
the  Privy  Council,  and  even  now  its  head-quarters  are  still  under 
the  same  roof.  The  Board  of  Trade  remains  nominally  under  the 
direction  of  a  committee  of  the  Privy  Council,  composed  of  a  Presi- 
dent, with  certain  ex-onicio  members,  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, the  Lord  Chancellor,  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  the  chief 
Secretaries  of  State,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and  others. 
But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  office  is  entirely  departmental,  and  when 
the  Board  of  Trade  is  spoken  of,  it  means  for  all  practical  purposes, 
not  the  committee  of  the  Privy  Council  subject  to  which  it  exercises 
its  power,  but  the  President  supplemented  by  his  secretaries  and 
official  staff.  Thus  both  in  fact  and  in  name,  it  is  a  distinct  branch 
of  the  Government. 

The  duties  of  the  Board  of  Trade  Office  are  both  multifarious 
and  interesting.  Railways,  the  mercantile  marine  of  the  country, 
weights  and  measures,  the  duty  of  collecting  all  those  statistics 
which  concern,  not  merely  the  Home  Government,  but  the  Admin- 
istration of  imperial  affairs,  belong  to  the  Board  of  Trade.  Much  of 
the  departmental  work  of  the  office  involves  a  knowledge  on  the 
part  of  those  b}r  whom  it  is  done  of  science  and  law.  Thus  it  comes 
frequently  within  the  province  of  this  department  to  decide  on  the 
best  form  of  railway  brakes,  on  the  structure  of  ships,  and  of  light- 
houses, to  say  nothing  of  the  exceedingly  comphcated  question  of 
signaling  by  sea.  Again,  as  it  is  our  maritime  power  which. brings 
us  into  contact  at  the  greatest  number  of  points  with  the  laws  of 
other  countries,  and  as  the  Board  of  Trade  is  very  largely  charged 
with  the  supervision  of  our  maritime  affairs,  so  does  it  follow  that 
various  questions  of  international  law  are  perpetually  presenting 
themselves  for  settlement  at  this  dejjartment.  The  Board  of  Trade 
may  be  said  to  take  charge  of  a  ship  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave. 
It  keeps  a  record  of  all  new  ships,  it  can  trace  the  voyages  of  them, 
and  has  a  list  of  the  passengers  and  crew  whom  they  have  upon  any 
occasion  carried.  Hence  the  offices  of  the  Board  of  Trade  witness 
much  that  is  touching,  and  contain  the  record  of  much  that  is 
noble.  It  is  here  that  those  who  are  interested  in  the  fives  of 
sailors  go  to  hear  something,  if  they  can,  of  the  fate  of  ships  which 
are  sujyposed  to  have  been  lost  at  sea.  Here,  too,  is  it  that  the 
claim  is  made  for  having  preserved  fife  at  sea.  Nor  are  the  duties 
of  the  office  in  reference  to  railways  less  considerable.  When  a 
new  railway  is  opened,  the  Board  of  Trade  sends  down  an  inspector 


/ 


OFFICIAL    ENGLAND. 

to  see  that  every  thing  is  in  a  proper  state  for  the  oomnn  ncement 
of  traffic. 

The  Privy  Council  Office  may  be  Bpoken  of  as  thai  departmenl  oi 

State  in  which  the  prerogatives  of  the  Crown  are  broughl  into  im- 
mediate contact  with  the  persons  of  its  ministers.  It  is  the  office 
which  forms  a  common  meeting  ground  for  much  of  the  business  of 
other  public  departments.  It  constitutes,  in  fact,  a  kind  of  imperial 
clearing  house.     Whatever  can  be  the  subject  of  an  Order  in  Coun- 

|    cil  naturally  comes  to  the  Privy  Council  Office,  and  is  there  pul  into 
a  shape  in  which  it  may  be  conveniently  considered  by  the  S 
ereign,  when  the  next  meeting  of  the  Privy  Council  is  held.    <  >rder  I 

I  in  Council  relate  to  such  subjects  as  the  ratification  of  measures 
passed  by  the  colonial  Parliaments,  royal  proclamations,  documents 
concerning  the  assemblage,  prorogation,  and  dissolution  of  the  Im- 
perial Parliament  at  Westminster.  Other  Orders  in  Council  are 
forms  which  give  effect  to  treaties,  which  extend  the  terms  of  pat- 
ents, which  grant  charters  of  incorporation  to  boroughs  and  to  com- 
panies, proclaim  ports  and  fairs,  decide  causes  in  appeal,  create  ec- 
clesiastical districts,  grant  exemptions  from  the  law  of  mortmain. 
There  is  thus  an  immense  deal  of  clerkly  business  to  be  transacted 
in  the  Privy  Council  Office. 

Her  Majesty  presides  at  about  a  dozen  meetings  of  the  Council 
in  the  course  of  the  year.  On  the  day  before  the  meeting,  all  the 
papers  to  be  discussed  are  sent  to  the  Queen,  and  if  Bhe  finds  any 
thing  which  she  does  not  exactly  understand,  she  will  desire  the  at- 
tendance of  the  minister  to  whose  department  it  relates.  No  Privy 
Councilor  attends  the  Council  meeting  unless  he  lias  been  specially 

'    summoned  to  do  so.     The  business  is  naturally  routine  work,  and  is 
generally  dispatched  in  less  than  an  hour.     The  presence  of  ll 
councilors  constitutes  a  quorum,  and  the  chair  is  always  taken  by  the 
Sovereign.     Again,  the  Privy  Council  is,  since  every  Cabinel   minis- 
ter must  first  be  sworn  in  a  Privy  Councilor — the  theory  being  that 
J  the  Cabinet  is  an  inner  council  of  the  Privy  Council — a  conned 
link  between  Parliament  and  the  Crown.     The  Cabinet   represents 
the  declared  will  of  the  constituencies,  and  the  chief  of  th    I     I    aet, 
the  Prime  Minister,  is  the  embodiment  of  the  Cabinet  in  the  sigh!  of 
the  Crown.     In  its  relation  to  the  Sovereign  the  Cabinel  is  an  indi- 
visible and  absolute  unity,  nor  can  a  Premier  1"-  guilty  of 
more  reprehensible  in  itself  and  in  its  tendency  than   when  he  in- 
forms the  Sovereign  of  the  specific  causes  of  difficulty  which  he  i 
encounter  with  his  colleagues.     "The  Premier,"  writes  Mr.  Gl  d- 
stone,  in  "Kin  Beyond  Sea,"  "  reports  to  the  Sovereign  the  proc 


i 


364  ENGLAND. 

ings  of  the  Cabinet,  lias  many  audiences  of  the  august  occupant  of 
the  throne,"  but  "  is  bound  in  these  reports  and  audiences  not  to 
undermine  the  position  of  any  of  his  colleagues  in  the  royal  favor. 
If  he  departs  in  any  degree  from  strict  adherence  to  these  rules,  and 
uses  his  great  opportunities  to  increase  his  own  influence,  and  pur- 
sue aims  not  shared  by  his  colleagues,  then,  unless  he  is  prepared  to 
advise  them,  he  not  only  departs  from  rule,  but  commits  an  act  of 
treachery  and  baseness.  As  the  Cabinet  stands  between  the  Sov- 
ereign and  the  Parliament  and  is  bound  to  be  loyal  to  both,  so  he 
(the  Premier)  stands  between  his  colleagues  and  the  Sovereign  and 
is  bound  to  be  loyal  to  both." 

The  relations  between  the  Secretary  of  State,  as  the  head  of  a 
department,  and  the  Sovereign,  as  supreme  over  the  State  itself,  are 
illustrated  by  the  form  with  which,  until  early  in  this  century,  this 
minister  commenced  his  answer  to  all  correspondence  brought  before 
him,  namely,  "  I  have  it  in  command  from  the  Sovereign  to  acquaint 
you,  &c."  This  mode  of  expression  has  now  been  dropped.  None 
the  less  are  the  relations  maintained  between  such  offices  as  the 
India  Office,  the  Colonial  Office,  the  Foreign  Office,  and  the  Sov- 
ereign of  the  most  direct  and  intimate  character.  In  the  case  of 
each  of  these  departments,  not  merely  is  there  the  frequent,  or  the 
occasional,  dispatch  of  official  papers  to  Her  Majesty,  but  it  is  part 
of  the  recognized  duties  of  the  Secretary  of  State  to  keep  Her  Maj- 
esty duly  informed  of  the  general  tenor  and  drift  of  his  administra- 
tion, and  of  any  important  transactions  between  the  office  in  London 
and  the  dependency  or  state  in  some  other  quarter  of  the  world. 
These  memoranda  are  never  written  by  any  member  of  a  depart- 
ment except  the  minister  at  its  head.  There  is  a  stereotyped  style 
in  which  they  all  begin,  to  this  effect — "  The  Marquis  of pre- 
sents his  humble  duty  to  Your  Majesty."  Two  obviously  proper 
rules  are  observed  in  these  momentous  communications,  and  in  all 
documents  submitted  to  the  Sovereign — one  is  that  they  shall  con- 
tain no  erasure,  the  second,  that  the  paper  on  which  they  are  writ- 
ten shall  not  be  folded. 

Considering  that  the  drafts  of  important  dispatches  are  sent  to 
the  Sovereign  before  they  leave  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  State, 
and  that,  in  addition  to  this,  Her  Majesty  receives  daily  the  above- 
mentioned  reports  of  all  matters  of  great  importance  pending,  it 
may  be  readily  understood  that  the  time  of  royalty  is  tolerably  well 
occupied. 

No  authentic  account  of  the  maimer  in  which  the  ministers  of 
the  Crown  transact  their  business  in  Cabinet  has  ever  yet  been  given 


OFFICIAL    ENGLAND. 

to  the  world,  and  the  secret  has  been  as  i>  ligiouarj  and  buc<  i  ■  U\\\y 
preserved  as  that  of  Freemasonry.     It  may,  however,  be 
conjectured  that  the  mode  in  which  business  is  conducted 
versational  and  easy;  it  is  probable  that  dri 

exceedingly  rare,  that,  as  a  rule,  ministers  speak  sitting,  and  that 
there  is  a  general  understanding  between  them  as  to  the  amovu 
business  which  shall  be  taken  on  a  particular  day,  and  with 
to  the  limit  of  time  which  is  no<  to  be  exceeded     The  actual  work 
of  legislation  is  prefaced  by  two  or  three  natural  preliminary  pro- 
cesses.    Supposing  that  the  Cabinet  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
a  particular  subject  is  ripe  for  legislation,  the  tirst  step  taken  in  the 
direction  of  legislation  would  be  for  the  minister  within  whoa  de- 
partment it  came  to  draw  up  the  heads  of  a  Bill  <>n  the  subject 
Copies  of  this  memorandum  would  be  sent    round  to  each  of  the 
ministers  in  one  of  the  circulating  boxes  opened  bj  a  key  in  the. 
possession  of  each  member  of  the  Cabinet,  who,  having  tak<  n  a  copy 
of  the  document  from  that  receptacle,  would  draw  a  line  through 
his  name,  inscribed  on  a  slip  of  paper  projecting  from  und<  r  the  lid 
of  the  box.    The  heads  of  the  proposed  measure  would  be  discu       1 
at  the  next  meeting  of  the  Cabinet,  and  the  decision  arrived  at  might 
probably  be  that  a  Bill  on  the  subject  should  be  dratted  in  due  form; 
the  same  process  would  then  be  gone  through  again  in  the  matter 
of  the  draft  measure,  and  thus,  after  having  been  firs!  discu    led 
then  rediscussed,  it  would  ultimately  come  before  Parliament 
The  life  of  a  State  official,  be  he  Cabinet  minister  <>i  Stat 
retary,  is  one  of  incessant  strain,  endless  anxiety,  continuous  toil 
Scant  leisure,  holidays  marred  by  the  perpetual  irruptions  of  dis- 
patches, telegrams,  and  other  documents,  are  all  thai   the  parlia- 
mentary vacation  brings.     'While  Parliament  is  sitting,  that  is,  dur- 
ing nearly  six  months  of  the  year,  he  is  condemned  Bystemati* 
to  bum  the  candle  at  both  ends.     Happy  is  he  if  he  be  Eairlj  a 
by  2  a.  m.;  by  noon  he  will  be  at  his  office  in  Whitehall,  Downing 
Street,  or  Pall  Mall,  busy  with  the  reports  of  his  private  bo< 
his  letters,  and  much  amorphous  material  which,  if  tb  I  i    | 

pitious,  will  some  day  or  other  be  reduced  to  order  in  blu<    b 
or  perhaps  be  embodied  in  Borne  measure  introduced  Liament, 

and,  it  may  be,  specially  commended  in  the  spe<  oh  from  the  throne. 
The  chances  are  that  our  Secretary,  or  Under-Secretary,  has  been 
already  up  since  eight  or  nine,  alter  barerj  five  hours'  fev<  rish  sleep. 
He  has  been,  in  all  probability,  as  ;i  Bequel  to  a  bastj  and  m 
stantial  breakfast,  endeavoring  to  brace  himself  for  the  toi] 
day  with  a  canter  in  Rotten  Row.     But  just  as  that   equest 


36G  ENGLAND. 

promenade  begins  to  grow  populous  and  gay  with  many  riders  and 
loungers,  our  official,  consulting  his  watch,  or  admonished  by  the 
chimes  of  Big  Ben,  turns  his  horse's  head,  and  makes  his  way 
towards  Westminster. 

Let  those  who  sometimes  conrplain  of  the  inaccessibility  of  the 
gentlemen  responsible  for  Her  Majesty's  Government,  reflect  how 
closely  packed  are  the  occupations  of  the  official  days,  how  short  the 
time  for  the  performance  of  innumerable  tasks.  There  is  a  deputa- 
tion to  be  received  which  will  absorb  at  least  an  hour;  there  is  the 
daily  conference  between  the  Secretary  of  State  and  the  Under-Sec- 
retary; there  are  business  interviews  with  other  members  of  the 
Government.  In  addition  to  this,  there  is  the  preparation  for  the 
night's  work  in  Parliament.  Notice  has  been  given  of  questions, 
and  the  materials  for  reply  have  to  be  diligently  searched  out.  A 
debate  is  expected,  which  will  draw  special  attention  to  the  depart- 
ment, and  the  honorable  or  right  honorable  gentleman  who  repre- 
sents it  must,  by  dint  of  much  official  cramming,  furnish  himself 
with  all  the  facts  and  figures  requisite  for  a  complete  exposition  of 
the  case.  A  Bill  which  the  Government  is  bent  on  "  carrying,"  and 
which  is  being  opposed  at  every  clause,  is  making  its  way  through 
committee,  and  our  statesman,  to  whom  it  is  chiefly  intrusted,  must 
prove  himself  an  encyclopedia  of  practical  arguments,  each  one  of 
which  is  a  conclusive  refutation  of  censure  and  criticism.  Four 
o'clock  comes,  and  the  minister  has  to  be  in  the  House.  Who  shall 
blame  him  if  he  has  economized  to  the  utmost  the  four  preceding 
hours,  or  who  would  remove  the  mysterious  inaccessibility  with 
which  he  endeavors  to  hedge  himself  round? 

Apart  from  the  papers  which  come  before  him  in  the  conduct  of 
the  regular  business  of  his  department,  a  Minister  of  State  is  bur- 
dened with  an  immense  variety  of  general  correspondence.  There 
are  letters  from  the  chiefs  of  the  Opposition  forces,  proposing  some 
plan  for  the  conduct  of  a  debate;  or  suggesting  some  compromise 
on  a  particular  Bill  which  may  happen  to  be  in  committee;  or  show- 
ing how,  if  the  right  honorable  gentleman  would  but  adopt  such- 
and-such  a  course,  he  might  disarm  some  of  his  most  formidable 
critics,  and  count  at  the  same  time  upon  satisfying  all  his  more 
reasonable  and  moderate  partisans.  Happily,  the  strife  of  the  "ins" 
and  the  "outs"  is  conducted  with  an  amenity  in  England  unknown 
elsewhere,  and  this  portion  of  the  ministerial  correspondence  con- 
clusively proves  the  fact.  Indeed,  our  imaginary  First  Lord,  or 
typical  Secretary  of  State,  very  often  finds,  that  the  communications 
of  his  professed  friends  are  more  troublesome  than  those  of  his 


OFFICIAL    ENGLAND. 

professed  foes.     A  follower  who  is  an  inveterafc  \ 

more  awkward  customer  than  a  factious  antagonist     As  fch< 
man  to  whom  it  lias  pleased  Ber  Majesty   to  give  her  confidi 
looks  at  his  letters,  there  are  certain  handwritings  which  h< 
templates  with  profound  weariness.     II 

envelopes  which  he  knows  contain  absolutely  impracticable  hints 
and  recommendations,  utterly  groundless  prot  and  quite  im- 
possible requests  from  his  most  loyal.  l>u!  -.1  importunate  sup- 
porters. That,  little  sheaf  of  letters  which  he  puts  on  one  aide  is 
it  collection  of  communications,  the  respective  authors  <-\  which 
express  a  hope  that  the  right  honorable  gentleman  will  so 
that  they  shall  have  a  day*  for  introducing  a  Bill  much  desired  by 
themselv(  a  or  their  constituents;  or  deferentially  point  out  that  if  a 
ministerial  measure  be  marked  by  the  presence  or  the  absence  of 
a  certain  clause,  some  great  industry  will  he  menaced,  or  some 
powerful  interest  injured;  or  assure  the  minister  that  it  will  be 
highly  desirable  if,  for  the  purpose  of  reassuring  the  more  w< 
kneed  of  his  followers,  he  will  take  an  early  opportunity  of  declar- 
ing what  points  or  principles  of  it  are  indispensable.  What  do<  -; 
the  minister  do?  Some  he  answers  in  a  few  lines  at  once;  others 
he  puts  aside  for  consideration— all  have  his  attention.  He  will 
consult  his  department  on  some;  on  some  he  will  communicate  with 
the  whip  of  the  party,  the  patronage  secretary  of  the  Treasury  :. 
is  officially  called,  and  will  ascertain  from  that  functionary  whether 
the  discontent  to  which  such  letters  poiut  can  he  said  to  contain  any 
of  the  elements  of  danger. 

Putting  aside  the  mass  of  correspondence  which   the   mini 
receives  from  his  brother  members  of  the  elective  Souse,  we  may 
glance  at  some  of  the  most  salient  characteristics  of  thai  countless 
multitude  of  epistles,  written  by  members  of  the  extra-parliamentary 
public,  which  daily  discharges  itself   into  Downing  Street      Many 
there  are  of  precisely  the  same  character  as  might  i»-  found  on  the 
breakfast-table  of  any  private  or  non-official  senator:  app] 
from  friends  and  constituents  for  berths  in  Government  offices;  let- 
ters particularly  drawing  attention  to  the  neglect  of  local  welfare  by 
the  Imperial  Parliament;   appeals  to  charity,  ami   • 
varying  in  tone  from  the  cringing  entreaty  to  t'  •    |  fcorj  de- 

mand on  the  subject  of  projected  legislation,  which  will  1 
detrimental  to  the  commerce  of  particular  boroughs,  or  the  t; 
tional  rights  of  counties;  Letters  applyin  Jaries  h 

officers  who  are  in  the  employment  of  the  < Government  and  \\ b< 
often  a  greater  b  ruble  to  an  admini 


368  ENGLAND. 

colleagues,  or  importunately  burning  questions.  A  Cabinet  minis- 
ter is,  of  course,  assailed  with  applications  from  old  personal  friends, 
on  behalf  of  their  sons,  or  other  members  of  their  family,  for  "whom 
they  wish  to  secure  nominations  to  offices  in  the  Civil  Service. 
There  are,  also,  lengthy  communications  from  the  accredited  agents 
of  the  party  in  the  provinces,  dispatched,  in  the  first  instance,  to 
the  head  whip,  and  by  that  officer  laid  before  his  chief.  Some  of 
these  are  troublesome  enough.  The  minister  hears  that  the  great 
tin-tack  interest  is  united  as  one  man  against  the  measure  which  the 
Government  has  introduced  for  regulating  afresh  that  particular 
industry;  or  that  an  agitation,  which  may  become  formidable,  is 
being  organized  for  the  remission  of  the  present  imposts  on  vel- 
veteens and  smock  frocks.  Others  are  written  with  reference  to  a 
vacancy,  actual  or  impending,  in  a  parliamentary  seat,  which  has 
been  hitherto  occupied  by  a  supporter  of  the  administration,  or 
which  it  is  hoped  to  wrest  from  the  Opposition.  These  are  docu- 
ments which  require  the  closest  attention  of  the  ministerial  mind. 
Composed  with  great  skill  and  local  knowledge,  they  place  before 
the  official  eye  precisely  the  qualifications  which  are  required  in  the 
forthcoming  candidate.  If  no  person  has  already  paramount  and 
irresistible  claims  to  represent  the  party,  then  comes  the  exercise  of 
the  official  choice.  The  local  agent  waits  with  anxiety  to  know  what 
the  selection  is.  The  gentleman  on  whom  the  lot  has  fallen  may  be 
a  perfect  stranger  to  him,  or  known  only  by  distant  rumor.  But  as 
soon  as  the  aspirant  member  for  the  borough  has  set  foot  within 
the  town,  and  has  been  closeted  with  one  or  two  of  its  leading  in- 
habitants, so  soon  does  that  astute  agent  know  whether  the  politi- 
cian dispatched  by  the  "  party  "  is  or  is  not  the  right  man  for  the 
right  place. 

Even  as  the  Imperial  Parliament  sitting  at  Westminster,  is,  in  a 
manner,  a  national  High  Court  of  Grievances,  so  is  every  Cabinet 
minister  stationed  at  his  desk  in  his  office  the  daily  recipient  of 
epistles  complaining  of  wrongs  inflicted  and  injustices  sustained, 
either  by  an  accidental  mishap  in  the  machine  of  government,  or  by 
the  operation  of  some  law,  vicious  in  principle  and  mistaken  in  prac- 
tice. The  number  of  letters  of  this  character  varies  in  the  different 
departments  of  State.  Possibly  the  most  ponderous  pile  of  all  is 
that  which  is  deposited  within  handy  reach  of  the  Eight  Honorable 
the  Secretary  of  State  for  War.  Are  not  the  Services  chartered  and 
inveterate  grumblers  ?  But  what  shall  be  said  of  the  countless  wails, 
pitched  in  every  key  of  discontent,  from  that  of  the  supplicating  and 
expectant  widow  to  that  of  the  veteran  who  has  grown  bald  and 


OFFICIAL    ENGLAND. 

bronzed  in  his  country's  service  under  a  tropica]  sly.  which  el    - 
other  right  honorable  'gentleman  or  nobleman,  the  of 

State  for  our  Oriental  Empire,  is  condemned  to  rei  B 

times  these  documents  contain  the  threats  of  an   acti< 
sometimes  they  are  piteous  protests  against  the  rate  of  .    ,  h  ■ 
and  the  depreciation  of  the  rupee;  Bometimea  thej   are  entreat     \ 
from  a  mother,  whose  husband  has  died  a  hero's  death,  thai  a  I        i 
of  some  sort  may  he  found  for  her  Bon     The  outside  communica- 
tions chiefly  received  by  the  head  of  the  Colonial  Office  are  of  a  dif- 
ferent character.     Colonists  being  their  own  masters,  and  carryi 
with  them  wherever  they  go  the  representative  institutions  of  I 
mother-country,  have  for  the  most  part  no  troubles  for  which  tl 
seek  redress  at  the  capital  yn  the  empire.     Xel  they  .-u-e  no!  uncom- 
municative, and  sometimes  their  communicativeness  lapses  into  im- 
portunate garrulity.     They  have  much  information  to  give,  and  they 
give  it  freely  without  being  solicited,  on  the  character  and  wants  of 
the  various  parts  of  the  colonial  dominions.     Much  more  often  than 
might  he  supposed,  the  correspondents  of  the  Colonial  Secret  ay 
suggest  fresh  annexations  of  territory;  there  are  even  cases  in  wh     i 
unemployed  gentlemen,  their  hearts  burning  for  adventure,  ap] 
for  a.  charter  for  a  filibustering  expedition,  whose  object   it  is  t]    I 
the  British  standard  may  float  over  realms  now  held  by  the  nol 
savage,  while  applications  for  concessions  from  conipan  i   indi- 

viduals are  of  course  exceedingly  common 

Let  our  inquiries  once  more  range  into  a  very  august  sphi   e 
We  are  in  the  sanctum  of  the  First  Lord  of  t]ir  Treasury,  ' 
Minister  for  the  time  being,  whatever  the  personality  of  that  indi- 
vidual.    The  great  man  looks,  with  as  much  of  a  smile  as  his  feat- 
ures can  wear,  over  a  sheet  of  post  letter-paper,  written  in  a  laj 
clear  hand,  or  listens  while  his  secretary  tells  him  something  of  U  6 
contents  of  an  epistle  much  interlined  and  underscored     What    j 
the  purport  of  the  document?    Let  it  be  understood,  thai  all  I 
eccentric  letter-writers  of  the  United  Kingdom  seem  to  select  Down- 
ing Street  as  the  point  at  which  to  discharge  their  missivea     'I      I 
the  head  of  Her  Majesty's  Government  should  receive  applicatii 
from  some  two  or  three  gentlemen  a  week,  who  are  anxious  to  edit 
his  speeches,  with  possibly  a  brief  introductory  memoir;   ti 
should  be  assailed  by  mysterious  correspondents,  who  i 

that  they  have  intelligence  of  the  most  vital  moment  t<>  the  realm, 
which  they  would  communicate  t<>  him  personally  since  t li»\  fear  to 
intrust  it  to  paper;  thai  he  should  be  pestered  by  i  for  small 

places  from  obscure  partisans  ami  <  cclesiastica]  preferment  for  bun* 
24 


870  ENGLAND. 

gry  divines;  that  a  considerable  portion  of  the  contents  of  his  letter- 
bag  should  be  the  impudent  petitions  of  pure  mendicity — in  all  these 
cases  the  statesman  shares  the  common  lot  of  exceptional  eminence. 

Of  all  Her  Majesty's  principal  ministers  of  State,  none  are  so 
much  solicited  by  requests  to  receive  de]3utations,  and  by  general 
correspondence  of  an  indescribably  miscellaneous  character,  as  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Home  Depart- 
inent.  Among  those  letters  are  some  of  the  most  useful  and  sug- 
gestive received  in  Downing  Street,  The  departments  and  legisla- 
tion of  which  these  two  ministers  have  charge  render  it  desirable 
and  necessary  that  they  should  have  the  minutest  acquaintance  with 
special  demands  and  local  requirements.  A  comparatively  trivial 
alteration  in  the  incidence  of  a  tax  may  make  all  the  difference  be- 
tween the  inrposition  and  the  removal  of  a  burden  of  discontent. 
Is  it  a  licensing  bill  on  which  the  Right  Honorable  the  Secretary  of 
State  for  the  Home  Department  is  engaged  ?  Of  course,  the  most 
exhaustive  investigation  which  official  machinery  can  command,  into 
the  wants  and  wishes  of  the  people  has  been  made  before  the  meas- 
ure was  drafted.  But  the  official  eye  is  sure  to  neglect  something. 
There  are  certain  facts,  certain  exceptional  conditions  prevailing  in 
particular  districts,  which  have  somehow  been  ignored.  These  are 
formally  communicated  to  the  department  which  takes  cognizance 
of  them,  are  duly  inquired  into,  and  very  frequently  have  the  effect 
of  considerably  modifying  the  ministerial  measure.  On  the  other 
hand,  neither  at  the  Home  Office  nor  the  Treasury  are  the  letters  of 
impracticable  crotcheteers  and  pragmatic  hobbyists  unknown.  If 
preposterous  proposals  and  impossible  plans  could  have  contributed 
to  such  a  result,  an  efficient  alternative  to  capital  punishment  would 
long  since  have  been  discovered — nay,  crime  itself  would  have  prob- 
ably become  extinct  in  this  realm;  while  as  for  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  he  would  have  paid  off  the  National  Debt  five  times  over. 

That  which  forms  the  most  romantic  portion  of  the  ministerial 
letter-bag  has  still  to  be  noticed.  Diplomacy,  as  it  is  conventionally 
represented  to  us,  is  a  darkly  mysterious  science;  and  not  a  few  of 
the  letters  which  find  their  way  to  the  head-quarters  of  British  di- 
plomacy are  of  a  corresponding  character.  If  the  Secretary  of  State 
for  Foreign  Affairs  were  to  believe  all  that  his  correspondents  tell 
him,  we  should  have  had  him  living  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  past 
on  the  brink  of  a  volcano,  whose  eruption  would  have  long  since 
desolated  the  kingdom  with  the  burning  torrents  of  revolution  let 
loose  by  foreign  hands.  But  self-seeking  adventurers  and  appli- 
cants for  employment  are  among  the  most  copious  contributors  to 


OFFICIAL    ENGLAND.  871 

the  Foreign  Office  letter-bag.     Nbl  merely  at  a  time  "f  Enron 
unrest,  but  in  the  midst  of  profound  peace,  there  are  Bcorea  and 
hundreds  of  ladies,  as  well  as  gentlemen,  who  profess  themselv<  i 
ready  and  able  to  reveal  the  clandestine  designs  of  forei  rern- 

ments,  and  to  act  as  secret  agents  generally,  for  a  modes!  hon- 
orarium. There  is  a  conspiracy  brewing  in  Borne  obscure  portion 
of  the  world  which  must,  sooner  or  later,  assume  disasb  len- 

sions,  and  of  which  only  the  particular  applicant  can,  l>/>  proc  ediug 
to  the  spot,  at  the  charge  of  the  public,  give  accurate  intoll 
Or  it  is  highly  desirable  that  the  Government  should  send  gub 
the  writer  on  a  mission  to  Bithynia;  or  their  correspi  adent,  V.  B., 
or  C,  has  had  experience  and  possesses  linguistic  attainments  which 
would  make  him  invaluable  in  the  employment  of  the  Crown.     Lastly, 
the  diplomatic  service  is  aristocratic,  and  the  Foreign  Office  is  fash- 
ionable; and,  as  to  the  fashionable  and  aristocratic  suitors  for  pi 
and  nominations  who  approach  the  Foreign  Secretary  with  every 
kind  of  letter,  is  not  their  name  legion  ? 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

THE     HOUSE    OF    COMMONS. 

Prevalence  of  Parliamentary  Ambition— Sensibly  mitigated  by  Counter  Attrac- 
tion of  Literature,  Journalism,  &c. — The  Value  of  a  Seat  in  Parliament — 
The  Work  which  it  entails— Inconveniences  attending  it— General  Eola- 
tions between  M.P.'s  and  Constituents— Small  and  large  Constituencies 
—The  House  of  Commons  the  "Manufactory  of  Statute  Law"— On  the 
Eve  of  a  Great  Debate— Characteristic  Scenes  in  Passages  and  Lobbies — 
Scene  in  the  House  itself— Presentations  of  Petitions — How  Notices  of 
Motion  are  given — Balloting  for  Days— General  Description  of  House — 
General  Aspect  of  Members— Questions  answered— Business  begins— Pre- 
liminary and  Personal— The  Debate  itself— The  Orator— The  Dinner  Hour 
—Hostilities  renewed— The  Whip— The  Division— Prevailing  Excitement— 
The  Prose  of  Legislation — Progress  of  a  Bill  from  Introduction  to  Boyal  As- 
sent—Qualities shown  by  Honorable  Members  in  Committee— The  Speaker: 
Functions  and  Position— Some  Rules  and  Practices  of  the  House— Motions 
— The  House  of  Commons'  Clerks— Select  Committees— House  of  Commons' 
Oratory— Is  it  declining? — Excellencies  of  House  of  Commons— Tastes  of 
House  and  Nuances. 

EVEKY  Englishman,  Mr.  John  Morley  has  remarked  in  his  work 
on  "Compromise,"  is  either  actually  or  potentially  a  parlia- 
mentary candidate,  and  the  political  instinct  is  certainly  still  vigor- 
ous in  the  British  breast.  "Whether,  however,  the  desire  on  the 
part  of  English  citizens  to  win  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  is 
or  is  not  on  the  decline,  whether  the  House  of  Commons  itself  may 
not  be  suffering  from  other  competing  opportunities  of  political 
activity,  are  questions  on  which  more  than  one  opinion  may  be  held. 
Five-and-twenty  years  ago  a  £>olitical  career  in  England  was  neces- 
sarily a  parliamentary  career.  If  a  man  wished  systematically  to 
influence  contemporary  opinion  on  public  affairs,  he  at  once  directed 
all  his  efforts  to  getting  into  the  House  of  Commons.  The  pamphlet 
had  already  lost  its  power,  political  journalism  was  an  imperfectly 
developed  force,  and  the  aspiring  statesman,  eager  to  address  him- 
self to  the  world,  could  only  do  so  through  the  medium  of  the 
morning  newspaper,  which  reported  his  speech.  The  position  has 
now  been  materially  modified.     There  are  not  only  more  political 


THE    HOUSE    OF   C  :\-;\ 

journals  and  more  political  writers;  the  writers  in  ,:  ournala 

are  taken  from  a  class  to  which  thej  never  before  I  I     Jour- 

nalism  may  not  have  yel  completely  lost,  to  th 
fastidious,  all  disreputable  associations,  but  the  reproach  again  I 
is  gradually  dying  out,  and  the  stigma  becoming  fainter.      I  ur- 

nalist  lias  long  since  left  his  garrel  In  <iml>  sin  et;  b< 
sarily  educated  for  his  vocation  in  Bqualor  and  poverty;  he  is  the 
friend  of  influential  personages,  and  is  very  possibl;  apart 

from  his  pen,  an  influential  personage  himself  Then,  if  at  the 
preseni  i\-.y  the  pamphlet  is  an  anachronism,  some  half-dozen  col- 
lections of  a  dozen  pamphlets  each  appear  evi  •  .th.  The  old 
quarterlies  of  party  have  been  succeeded  by  the  new  monthly  pi 

I  odicals  of  culture.     The  review,  instead  of  being  the  organ  of  a 
tion,  is  a  platform  for  the  individual.     To  contest  constituency  ai 
constituency  is  disagreeable  and  cosily  work.     After  many  si 
success  may  not  be  attainable;  and  even  when  the  House  has  been 
cured,  political  eminence  and  influence  do  not  always  follow.     There 
are  the  whims  and  tempers  of  our  six  hundred  kings  to  be  stud 
there  is  the  risk  of  the  hell  of  failure  to  be  run.     It  is  much  easier, 
much  less  expensive,  much  more  satisfactory,  to  serve  in  the  ai 
of  paper  politicians. 

Some  notoriety  and  a  small  measure  of  capacity  will  secure  for 
the  aspirant  to  literature  a  place  in  one  of  the  influential  monthly 

1  organs  of  select  opinion,  in  whose  pages  he  may  find  himself  elbow- 
ing a  former  Prime  Minister  ami  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  jo 
ling-  against  a  group  of  lay  and  clerical  disputants,  or  sitting  next  to 
an  illustrious  doctor  of  physical  philosophy. 

If  the  attention  paid  by  some  honorable  gentlemen,  when  they 
address  the  House  of  Commons,  to  the  reporters'  gallery  can  In- 
scribed as  the  homage  of  oratory  to  literature,  the  spectacle  of  well- 
known  statesmen  fighting  grave  political  issues  in  the  monthly  m 
"azines  suggests  and  symbolizes  the  triumph  of  the  pen  ovi  r  Pi 
ment.     It  is  impossible  to  doubt  thai  the  multiplied  opportunit 
which  are  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  thoughtful  statesman  bj  edi- 
tors and  publishers  must  have  the  effeci  ol  preventing  many  ■ 
men  who  might  otherwise  be  moved  to  do  so  from 
addresses  at  the  forthcoming  1    election.      The  paper  politi- 

cians,  as  we  have  called  th  im,  are  and  a  r<   p  el  ible  el 

\  the  periodical  invented  for  their  want.-,  gives  thi  m  all  the  pub! 
they  could  desire,  or  they   can  at   least    afford    to   post]  0  ring 

the  House  of  Commons  till  they  have  educated  that  assemblage  up 
to  their  own  professorial  Level 


/ 


374  ENGLAND. 

But  there  are  other  and  more  generally  cogent  reasons  which 
will  probably  tend  to  diminish  the  number  of  possible  candidates 
for  the  House  of  Commons.  The  number  of  persons  who  think 
they  have  a  political  mission  is  strictly  limited,  and  many  gentlemen 
who  go  into,  or  who  are  ambitious  of  going  into,  the  House  of  Com- 
mons are  animated  by  two  motives — desire  of  social  promotion,  or 
of  extended  personal  power.  Now  it  is  beginning  to  be  very  ques- 
tionable whether  the  degree  and  kind  of  social  promotion  which  a 
seat  in  Parliament  brings  with  it  are  sufficient  to  compensate  its 
possessor  for  the  expenditure  and  worry  which  it  entails.  No  sena- 
tor and  no  senator's  family  were  ever  advanced  to  the  rank  of  social 
sovereignty  by  the  magic  influence  of  the  letters  M.P.  The  social 
aspirant  who  goes  into  the  House  of  Commons  very  soon  finds  that 
the  social  accessories  of  St.  Stephen's  are  to  a  great  extent  an  illu- 
sion. He  may  receive  more  invitations,  and  when  he  is  being  enter- 
tained by  certain  hosts  may  have  the  gratification  of  knowing  that 
he  secures  greater  attention;  but  he  seldom  succeeds  in  entirely 
changing  his  social  level.  His  social  position,  in  fact,  is  not  so 
much  exalted  as  emphasized.  "What  holds  good  of  the  elective 
legislator  himself  is  yet  more  strictly  applicable  to  his  family.  If 
his  wife  and  daughters  were  not  in  the  way  before  of  meeting  peers, 
diplomatists,  attaches,  young  men  of  birth  and  fashion  and  wealth, 
neither  will  they  be  in  the  way  of  meeting  them  now;  if,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  were,  they  will  find  then-  previous  opportunities 
multiplied. 

But  the  personal  importance  and  the  professional  or  commercial 
value  of  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  are  unquestionable.  To 
these  must  be  added  the  essentially  interesting  nature  of  the  occu- 
pation. The  House  of  Commons  is  at  once  a  roirror  and  a  concen- 
tration of  the  national  life.  There  is  no  rumor  of  any  sort,  social, 
commercial,  diplomatic,  or  political,  which  does  not  make  its  way 
into  the  lobbv  of  the  House,  though  it  mav  not  indeed  reach  the 
ears  of  all  who  throng  that  octagonal  chamber.  "  Before  the  House," 
writes  Mr.  Palgrave,*  "passes  yearly  every  national  anxiety.  What- 
ever occupies  the  attention  of  this  great  empire  makes  its  appear- 
ance there,  be  the  subject  trivial  or  important,  be  it  the  state  of 
Botten  Bow  or  the  conduct  of  a  war.  A  parliamentary  discussion 
also  is  sure  to  turn  a  subject  inside  out,  and  to  disclose  its  precise 
nature.  To  hear  this  well  done  is  no  sorry  amusement;  intellect- 
ually it  is  a  great  gain.     Moreover,  the  gossip  of  the  House  is  of 

*  "The  House  of  Commons,"  by  Reginald  F.  D.  Pr.lgraTe,  p.  48. 


THE    HOUSE    OF   (  VS.  37| 

first-rate  quality.  To  tell  or  to  hear  some  iwv,  thing  il  is  the  best 
place  possible,  nor  are  the  new  things  repeal  <!  in  Parliament  only 
gossip.  Passing  events  do  not  merely  furnish  talk  to  the  EIou  ; 
they  are  a  part  of  the  history  of  our  land."    Here,  then,  we  have  t 

list  of  attractions  sufficiently  numerous  (o  account  for  (lie  popularity 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  to  justify  a  certain  limited  accept- 
ance of  Mr.  Morley's  rather  sweeping  dictum.     Hence  it   is  that 

there  is  no  lack  of  candidates  to  spend  upon  a  parliamentary  elec- 
tion an  amount  of  money  and  trouble  which,  if  placed  in  a  sound! 
commercial  enterprise,  would  give  the  investor  a  competence  for 
life.  For  these  reasons  are  the  abnormal  hours  and  the  severe  la- 
bors which  constituencies  demand,  tolerated  with  equanimity  foj 
six  months  of  the  year.  A  member  of  Parliament  who  is  desirous 
of  doing  his  duty  will  often  commence  work  a  little  before!  noon, 
only  to  leave  off  two  or  three  hours  after  midnight.  At  twelve 
o'clock,  he  will  take  his  place  in  a  committee-room,  and  sit  there 
with  a  few  interruptions  till  four.  Then  he  is  due  at  the  House, 
and  there  he  remains  till  long  after  the  chimes  announce  that  a  new 
day  has  begun.  In  the  sessions  of  1860  and  lb77  the  Commons 
worked  after  twelve  o'clock  at  night  during  more  than  a  hundred 
and  fifty  hours.  This  represents  the  addition  of  fifteen  working 
days  of  ten  hours  each  to  the  sessidn.  Add  to  this  that  before  a 
member  of  Parliament  can  have  learned  the  nature  of  his  busine    , 

(he  must  have  mastered  the  contents  of  Sir  Erskine  May's  "Parlia- 
mentary Practice  " — about  800  pages  in  length  and  full  of  figures 
and  facts — that  if  he  wishes  not  to  let  the  business  of  the  session 
fall  hopelessly  into  arrears,  he  must  make  the  acquaintance  of  a  pile 
of  papers  and  blue  books,  of  whose;  bulk  some  idea  may  be  formed 
from  the  fact  that  they  average  an  annual  total  of  eighty  volumes; 
that  there  are  also  constantly  coming  before  the  House  great  com- 

'  mercial  enterprises,  affecting  large  private  and  public  interests,  such 
as  the  supply  of  water  to  towns,  and  the  making  of  railways;  bear 
all  this  in  mind,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  during  the  ses  ion  a  m<  m- 
ber  oi'  Parliament  who  does  his  duty  can  have  but  little  time  which 
he  may  call  his  own. 

sides  his  purely  parliamentary  labors,  there  are  those  which 
his  private  relations  with  his  constituents  involve.     No  mistress  was 

i  ever  more  intolerably  jealous  and  exacting  of  her  lover  than  the 
ordinary  constituency  of  its  representative.  The  member  of  Parlia- 
ment is  never  certain  for  si::  months  or  si:,  v. .  •  ka  tog<  ther  of  the 
loyal  affection  of  his  electors.  The  last  time  he  was  amongst  them 
they  received  him  with  the  most  cordial  and  effu  Lcomes. 


376  ENGLAND. 

Since  then  be  has  had  letters  from,  or  interviews  in  the  lobby  with, 
some  of  the  more  influential  of  his  supporters,  from  which  he  gath- 
ers that  he  has  contrived  to  offend  a  sensitive  but  important  section; 
he  has  forgotten  that  his  borough  is  a  place  in  which  urban  and 
county  interests  meet,  and  farmers  and  tradesmen  both  accuse  him 
of  having  been  indifferent  to  matters  that  are  of  vital  import  to 
them.  He  has  trimmed  upon  the  Burials'  Bill.  It  seems  very 
much  as  if  he  had  ratted  upon  the  County  Suffrage;  or  he  has  not 
taken  sufficient  notice  of  the  mayor  of  the  town  when  that  local 
potentate  came  up  to  London  a  few  months  ago. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  legislator  who  has  won  the  confidence 
and  affection  of  a  smaller  constituency  is  not  required  to  pledge  him- 
self to  the  support  of  any  very  definite  programme  or  any  specific 
nostrums,  as  is  the  representative  of  an  inrportant  borough,  fully 
conscious  of  its  own  merits  and  power.  So  long  as  he  generally 
attends  to  the  local  interests  and  business  of  the  borough  he  will  be 
allowed  to  do  pretty  much  what  he  likes;  but  he  must  take  care 
that  he  does  not  become  a  mere  political  abstraction  to  his  electors. 
He  may  do  what  he  will  with  his  principles,  but  though  his  constit- 
uency are  devotedly  attached  to  the  small  borough-member,  even 
their  fidelity  is  not  proof  against  ail  temptation.  If  he  leaves  them 
alone  too  much  he  knows  that  he  will  have  but  himself  to  blame  if 
tilings  go  wrong.  And  it  is  no  laughing  matter,  in  the  thick  of  the 
session  and  the  season,  to  be  called  upon  once  a  fortnight  to  travel 
a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  preside  at  a  dinner  of  townsmen,  or  to 
take  the  chair  at  the  annual  jubilee  of  a  friendly  society. 

But  it  is  time  that  some  idea  should  be  given  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  business  of  the  nation  is  transacted  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. It  is  yet  too  early  for  the  visitor  to  enter  the  chamber  of 
the  popular  legislature,  seeing  that  prayers,  said  daily  at  four  o'clock 
by  the  chaplain,  are  not  yet  over.  They  are  three  in  number,  one 
for  the  Queen,  another  for  the  royal  family,  a  third  for  the  Commons, 
on  behalf  of  whom  it  is  supplicated  that  their  deliberations  may  bo 
conducted  "without  prejudice,  favor,  or  partial  affection."  Then 
comes  the  collect  beginning  "Prevent  us,  O  Lord,  in  all  our  doings," 
and  in  less  than  ten  minutes  eveiw  thing  will  be  ready  for  the  even- 
ing's work.  If  there  is  an  important  debate  imminent,  all  the  seats 
in  the  body  of  the  House  will  have  been  occupied  while  the  short 
religious  service  is  in  progress,  for  it  is  only  by  being  present  then 
that  an  honorable  member  can  take  his  place  and  establish  a  right 
to  occupy  it  throughout  the  evening.  Before  prayers,  he  may  sym- 
bolize his  appropriation  of  a  seat  by  depositing  in  it  his  hat  and 


THE    HOUSE    OF   COMMONS.  377 

gloves,  or  perhaps  a  bundle  of  papers;  but  it  is  only  when  prayers 
are  over  that  he  is  permitted  to  place  his  card  in  the  little  b] 
l'rame  let  into  the  back  of  the  bench,  and  thus  secure  the  Beal  for 
himself  during  the  whole  evening.  The  chaplain  now  leaves  the 
chamber,  walking  backwards  and  bowing  all  the  way.  The  Speaker 
takes  the  chair,  and  at  the  extremity  of  the  table  op]  i 
mace,  which  symbolizes  his  presence,  is  deposited  by  the  Sergeant* 
at- Arms. 

Meanwhile,  there  is  a  busy  scene  to  be  witnessed,  not  merely  in 
the  House  itself,  but  in  those  parts  of  the  building  which  lead  l<>  it. 
The  appearance  of  the  Westminster  lobbies  may  generally  be  taken 
as  an  accurate  index  of  the  character  of  the  debatej  impending  or  in 
actual  progress,  and  the  merest  tyro  may  infer,  from  the  composi- 
tion of  the  crowds  that  throng  the  passageSj  whether  it  is  Bible,  or 
beer,  or  Irish  affairs,  which  engage  the  attention  of  Her  Majesty's 
"Faithful  Commons"  on  any  given  evening  or  afternoon.  If  the 
first,  he  will  see  in  the  Great  Hall  the  passages  and  th<  ante-cham- 
bers populous  with  thronging  groups  of  enthusiastic  cler  ■  ■  men.  If 
he  made  his  way  into  the  members'  lobby,  he  would  have  seen  the 
lay  bishops  of  the  House  of  Commons  the  center  of  a  demonstrative 
group  of  clerics.  The  scene  on  the  occasion  of  any  Bill  which 
touches  the  licensing  laws  is  equally  typical.  Perspiring  publicans 
are  seated  at  intervals  along  the  line  of  approach  to  tb  •  s  inatorial 
sanctum.  Some  of  these  gentlemen  are  chiefly  anxious  to  gain  an 
order  for  admittance;  the  majority  are  intent  on  more  as  busi- 

ness. On  another  occasion  it  is  neither  the  public-house  question, 
nor  the  Church  question,  which  invites  the  attention  of  an  elective 
legislature.  We  are  to  have  an  Irish  evening,  and  the  nationality 
of  the  imminent  discussion  is  immediately  shown  in  the  composition 
of  the  knots  of  gentlemen  standing  in  and  about  the  members' 
lobby.  Every  variety  of  Hibernian  accent  is  audible,  from  the  thin, 
nipping  brogue  of  Dublin,  to  the  rich  broad  roll  of  Cork.  Some 
these  sons  of  the  Emerald  Isle  are  the  correspondents  of  Irish  new  - 
papers,  waiting,  it  may  be,  for  any  intelligence  which  they  can  pick 
up,  or  perhaps  to  receive  from  one  of  their  compatriots  who  is  going 
to  enlighten  the  House  that  evening  with  his  orators,  a  full  and  cor- 
rect report  of  the' as  yet  undelivered  speech.  Others  are  posses  1 
by  a  spirit  of  feverish  anxiety  to  know  whether  certain  petitions 
have  been  presented. 

In  the  actual  lobby  of  the  House  may  be  seen  our  elective  1< 
lators,  in  little  knots  of  three  and  four,  discussing  with  each  otl 
or  with  friends  and  constituents,  the  events  and  the  rumors  of  the 


378  ENGLAND. 

hour;  newspaper  editors,  who  have  the  entree  of  the  place,  button- 
holing some  great  man  with  a  view  of  learning  State  secrets,  and 
very  frequently  some  occupant  of  the  reporters'  gallery,  who  is  also 
a  correspondent  of  a  provincial  journal,  engaged  in  much  the  same 
process.  The  doors  of  the  House  are  constantly  swinging  back- 
wards and  forwards.  White-haired  janitors  guard  the  portal  on 
either  side;  the  ah  is  full  of  the  buzz  of  conversation,  and  all  is 
motion  and  life.  The  spectacle  visible  inside  the  House  itself  is  not 
one  of  less  animation.  Each  successive  foot  of  the  green  leather- 
covered  benches  is  being  occupied  by  gentlemen  who  have  already 
left  there  the  emblem  of  rightful  possession,  and  who  stream  in  one 
by  one,  and  two  by  two,  while  private  business  is  going  on.  This  is 
the  name  given  to  all  measures  promoted  by  railway  companies,  gas 
companies,  water  companies,  municipal  corporations,  or  private  indi- 
viduals. Every  thing  that  passes  with  reference  to  these  Bills  in 
the  House  of  Commons  is,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  purely  formal. 
The  private  Bill,  after  having  been  read  a  first  and  second  time,  the 
reading  simply  consisting  of  a  motion  that  it  shall  be  so  read,  is 
referred  to  a  select  committee,  who  pass  the  measure,  send  it  back 
to  the  Commons  for  the  third  reading,  and  thence  to  the  Lords. 

o'  • 

Not  much  attention  is  therefore  paid  to  the  earlier  proceedings  of 
the  parliamentary  sitting.     At  half-past  four  o'clock,  the  public  busi- 

■  ness,  which  is  the  real  business  of  the  evening,  begins.  The  House 
of  Commons  is  a  great  national  court  of  grievance,  and  to  these 
grievances  its  attention  is  drawn  by  petitions.  On  each  side  of 
the  table  hang  carpet-bags  in  which  the  document  in  question  is 
dropped.  As  a  rule  the  presentation  of  a  petition  resolves  itself 
into  the  inscription  of  its  subject  and  its  origin  on  two  pieces  of 
paper,  which  are  sent  to  the  reporters'  gallery.  A  member  of  Par- 
liament, however,  has  the  right  to  declare,  viva  voce,  who  the  peti- 
tioners are,  and  what  their  aim  is.  Further,  he  may  insist  that  the 
whole  document  shall  be  read  aloud,  but  not  audibly,  by  one  of  the 
clerks  of  the  table.  The  next  stage  in  the  proceedings  is  the  giving 
notices  of  motions.     These  notices  may  relate  either  to  questions,  or 

1  resolutions,  or  Bills.  As  regards  the  first,  notice  of  question  is  gen- 
erally given  by  the  member  to  the  Minister,  and  this  is  for  the  most 
part  done  by  the  interrogant  writing  his  question  on  a  piece  of 
paper,  and  handing  it  to  the  clerk  at  the  table.  As  there  are  always 
many  more  honorable  members  anxious  to  obtain  a  day  for  their 
motions  than  there  are  days  available,  it  is  necessary  to  resort  to 
the  process  of  deciding  by  ballot  how  these  days  shall  be  allotted. 
On  the  table  of  the  House  there  lies  a  notice  paper  with  a  row  of 


THE    HOUSE    OF   COM, 

printed  figures  at  the  side;  on  this  list  members  write  th<  ir  names. 
In  a  box  before  the  clerk  at  the  table  are  small  bits  of  pap  I 

up,  bearing  figures  which  correspond  to  those  on  the  ah  ■  ;.  \\ !  ,  n, 
therefore,  notices  of  motions  are  called,  the  clerk  draws  on 

pieces  from  the  box  and  reads  aloud  its  number,  while  the  ^;; 
looking  at  the  list  in  his  hands,  calls  successively  by  nam<  u- 

tloman  whose  patronymic  is  written  opposite  the  lucky  figure  that 
comes  out.  Hence  it  is  a  mere  question  of  chance  whether  a  ]>ri- 
vate  member  obtains  an  opportunity  for  '  motion 

or  not.     There  are  only  two  days,  Tuesday  and  Friday,  in  the  week 
available  for  this  purpose.*  Monday  and  Thursday  arc  Government 
nights.     On  Wednesday,  which  like  Tuesday  and  Friday  is  op  n  n> 
the  private  member,  but  for  bills  only,  not  motions,  the  disc 
on  any  subject  closes  at  a  quarter  to  six. 

Before  the  actual  business  of  the  evening  commences,  the  ap- 
pearance and  the  occupants  of  the  House  may  be  briefly  de  icrib<  i. 
We  are  now  entering,  let  the  reader  supj^ose,  through  the  door  which 
opens  immediately  out  of  the  lobby.  Al  >ve  us  is  the  clock,  and  on 
either  side,  raised  a  little  above  the  level  of  the  floor,  arc  rows  of 
seats  allotted  to  the  secretaries  of  Ministers  and  other   ;  1 

persons.     As  the  visitor  looks  straight  in  front  ol  him     he  is  d 
advancing  to  that  invisible  line  which  runs  from  the  ci  pacious  chair 
in  which  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  is  ensconced  to  the  seai   opposite, 
which  is  called  the  bar,  and  at  which  all  pe  printers,  writers, 

and  others  guilty  of  contumacy  are  summoned  for  breach  of  privi- 
lege— he  will  see  rows  of  benches,  covered  with  green  leather,  rising 
tier  on  tier  on  cither  side,  while  immediately  opposite  is  the  Speaker's 
chair,  on  a  small  elevated  dais.     Immediately  beneath  the  Speaker 
are  the  three  clerks  at  the  table,  who  wear,  in  virtue  of  their  offi 
independently  of  whether  they  are  or  are  not  barristers,  wigs  and 
gowns.    The  benches  on  the  Speaker's  right  hand  are  occupied  by  the 
Ministers  and  their  supporters,  those  on  the  left  by  the  <  >ppo  ition — 
the  members  of  the  late  Government  being  seated  on  the  fron"  <  >p] 
sition  bench,  as  the  members  of  the  present  are  on  the  Cronl  b<  i 
confronting  them.     This  row  of  Beats  is  divided  by  a  small  inter- 
space to  admit  of  the  passage  to  and  fro  of  members,  which  is  known 
as  the  gangway,  and  below  the  gangway  sit  the  independei  -h 

members,  and  below  them,  as  well  as  intermingled  with  ih<  m,  I 
Irish  Home  Rule  members.     Once  more  facing  about 
exactly  opposite  Mr.  Speaker,  we  elevate  our  eyes  and  see  in  I 
gallery,  beneath  which  enter  those  numbers  who  wi 
notice,  and  which  rises  immediately  above  Mr.  S] 


380  ENGLAND. 

representatives  of  the  press,  seated  in  two  rows.  Those  who  occupy 
the  front  boxes  are  the  actual  reporters,  busy  with  their  stenographic 
symbols;  those  seated  behind  them  are  either  reporters  waiting  their 
turn,  or  leader-writers  for  the  different  newspapers  listening  to  the 
debate.  If  you  cast  your  eye  still  farther  up.  in  the  direction  of  the 
roof,  you  will  perceive  an  iron  grating  in  the  wall,  whence  there  look 
out  the  faces  of  ladies.  This,  indeed,  is  the  ladies'  gallery,  better 
known  as  the  cage,  and  though  many  proposals  have  been  made  to 
do  away  with  the  railing  which  obscures  their  view,  the  step  has 
always  been  resisted  on  the  ground  that  it  would  tend  to  distract 
the  attention  of  honorable  members  from  parliamentary  business. 

Now,  let  the  reader  suppose  that  he  has  ascended  to  that  gallery 
in  which  are  congregated  the  gentlemen  of  the  press.  He  is  on  a 
level  with  the  two  galleries  in  which  members  of  Pcirliament  sit  and 
watch  the  debates.  Opposite  him,  and  still  on  the  same  level,  are  a 
succession  of  galleries  which  require  explanation.  The  first  of  these, 
that  which  directly  overlooks  the  area  of  the  House,  is  devoted  to 
peers  and  ambassadors,  and  other  illustrious  personages.  Just  be- 
hind this  there  are  seats  which  the  scholars  of  Westminster  School 
are  allowed  to  occupy,  and  to  which  members  of  Parliament  may 
sometimes  introduce  upon  special  occasions  the  more  distinguished 
of  their  friends.  Behind  this  is  the  Speaker's  gallery — two  long  rows 
of  seats,  closely  packed,  one  may  be  sure,  if  a  debate  of  any  impor- 
tance is  expected;  and  behind  this,  again,  is  the  strangers'  gallery. 
Behind  this,  there  is  a  small  compartment,  fenced  off  by  an  iron  rail- 
ing— another  ladies'  cage — the  Sergeant's  gallery,  the  gallery  of  the 
Speaker's  wife,  for  ladies,  being  the  right  hand  compartment  of  the 
cage  looking  towards  the  Speaker's  gallery. 

Already  it  is  possible  to  form  some  notion  of  the  personal  appear- 
ance of  the  honorable  members  of  whom  the  Hoxise  consists.  They 
enter  one  after  another,  in  all  kinds  of  costumes,  and  with  every  sort 
of  manner.  The  first  thing  which  it  is  natural  to  remark  is  that  the 
operation  of  the  ballot  has  caused  but  little  change  in  the  exterior 
aspect  of  the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  parliament- 
ary visitor  will  see  sitting  on  either  side  of  the  Speaker's  chair  the 
same  array  of  broad-acred  squires  and  of  successful  merchants  as  he 
has  observed  any  time  during  the  last  ten  years.  The  squires  are 
not  quite  so  numerous  as  they  were.  The  barristers  are  more 
numerous.  There  are  not,  perhaps,  quite  as  many  young  men  as 
formerly.  In  the  House  of  Commons  elected  in  1871  there  were 
only  a  hundred  members  under  forty  years  of  age,  of  which  one  half 
were  less  than  thirty-five,  while  only  sixteen  were  less  than  thirty. 


THE    HOUSE    OF   COMMONS.  gg] 

Of  tlic  former  of  these — those  less  than  thirty-five     twenty 

of  peers,  whose  election  was  mainly  attributable  to  family  influence. 

Among  the  Home  Rulers,  the  proportion  of  young  m  m  was  unu  iu- 
allv  large. 

Yet  more  significant  is  it  that  of  the  House  of  which  we  are  now 
speaking  more  than  one-fifth  of  the  total  members  Bhould  have  been 
elected  during  its  existence,  and  that  even  thus  the   a\.  ,  ;i   n 

should  be  more  than  fifty.  There  are  indeed  nun  in  the  House  of 
Commons  who  take  to  politics  as  a  profession.  They  arc  the  sail  of 
the  assemblage,  and  they  alone  will  ultimately  rise  to  the  highest 
political  distinction.    But  then  these  have  abundant  meai  their 

own,  and  the  fact  remains  that  for  the  greater  number  the  Houe  of 
Commons  is  the  glorified  haven  of  men  who  have  been  successful 
1  in  other  pursuits.  Not  merely  has  the  extension  of  the  suffrage  in- 
creased the  polling-booths  and  the  costlier  parts  of  the  ■  I  storal 
machinery,  but  in  the  life-time  of  each  parliament  mei 
themselves  involuntarily  compelled  to  spend  more  money  in  local 
charities  and  other  institutions,  in  the  hope,  if  possible,  of  averting 
a  contest.  Again,  even  in  the  larger  constituencies  where  most  of 
the  expenses  are  paid  by  subscribers  there  exists  a  distrust  of  youth, 
and  the  preference  is  given  to  the  middle-aged  gent]. men,  especially 
if  they  happen  to  have  been  in  the  House  of  Common  -  I  Eore.  The 
most  costly  seats  of  all  are  probably  those  for  the  metropolitan  coun- 
ties, in  the  case  of  which  the  object  is  to  get  a  candidate  who  is  a 
personage  both  in  the  city  and  in  his  suburban  neighborhood,  or 
who  is  willing  to  pay  for  the  possession  or  the  continuation  of  dis- 
tinction Avhich  a  seat  for  a  metropolitan  county  con 

The  truth  is  that  we  see  everywhere  in  politics  what  we  have  seen 
in  society,  the  general  substitution  of  the  plutocratic  principle  for 
the  aristocratic,  although,  as  has  been  already  pointed  out,  ii   is  a 
plutocracy  round  which  there  have  crystallized  themselves  man. 
the  prejudices  and  sentiments  of  aristocracy.     Since  the  repeal  of 
,    the  Corn  Laws  the  peerage  has  been  increased  by  more  than  eighty 
new  creations.     Yet  in  the  House  of  Commons  elected  in 
were  not  represented  more  than  two  thirds  of  those  peers  who  \\. 
represented  in  1846.     Here  then  is  the  evidence  of  Vnv  grea    chaj 
which  has  been  accomplished.     Whereas  twenty  years  after  the  Re- 
form  Bill  of  1832,  there  was  scarcely  any  diminution  in  the  total  of 
peers'  heirs  in  the  Lower  House,  the  diminution  is  now  an  accom- 
plished fact.     The  conclusion  is  therefore  irresistible  thai  id- 
ency  will  be  more  and  more  for  titles  without  money  to  be  n    arded 
as  politically  useless. 


382  ENGLAND. 

The  notices  having  been  dispatched,  the  time  for  the  asking  and 
answering  of  questions  arrives.  Most  of  these,  it  may  be  supposed, 
have  neither  urgency  nor  interest,  but  there  are  some,  from  the 
replies  given  to  which  it  would  seem  that  an  idea  of  the  ministerial 
policy  on  matters  of  pressing  moment  may  be  formed.  When  we 
come  to  these,  the  murmur  of  talk  is  changed  for  comparative  silence. 
The  only  sounds  audible  in  succession  are  the  voice  of  Mr.  Speaker, 
who  summons  the  questioner,  of  the  questioner  himself,  of  his  min- 
isterial respondent,  of  the  crackling  of  paper  as  the  gentlemen  of 
the  House  of  Commons  turn  over  the  leaves  of  the  orders  of  the 
day,  and  of  the  deadened  monotones  of  suppressed  chatter  in  the 
distance.  Supposing  the  answer  to  be  one  which  clearly  shows  that 
her  Majesty's  Ministers  have,  or  have  not,  decided  to  adopt  a  certain 
line  of  action  in  a  matter  of  supreme  national  moment,  there  is  sure 
to  be  a  great  demonstration  of  feeling.  Very  frequently,  however, 
these  interrogations  relate  to  imaginary  grievances  and  unfounded 
reports.  There  are  many  different  ways  of  answering  such — the 
circumlocutory,  the  evasive,  the  enigmatical,  the  humorous,  the  con- 
temptuous, the  solemn,  the  jocular,  the  courteous,  the  sarcastic. 
The  questions  over,  the  next  thing  is  to  pass  to  the  order  of  the 
day.  Let  it  be  supposed  that  this  order — the  day  being  a  Thurs- 
day, and  consequently  appropriated  to  ministers — is,  that  the  House 
shall  resolve  itself  into  Committee  of  Supply,  to  which  it  is  possi- 
ble that  an  amendment  has  been  proposed  directly  or  indirectly 
raising  the  question  of  confidence  in  the  Government.  Now  it  is 
perfectly  possible  that  before  the  gentleman  who,  having  a  night 
or  two  previously  moved  the  adjournment  of  the  House,  has  the 
right  to  open  the  debate,  has  commenced  to  speak,  another  hon- 
orable member  may  rise  from  his  seat  with  an  intimation  that 
he  wishes  to  bring  before  the  Speaker,  to  whom  every  member 
does  as  a  matter  of  form  address  himself,  a  question  of  order  or 
privilege.  This  generally  portends  that  some  purely  personal  epi- 
sode is  imminent.  An  honorable  gentleman  whose  sentences  are 
capitally  constructed,  and  whose  voice  is  clear  and  bitter,  protests 
that  he  has  been  gratuitously  vilified  by  an  honorable  member 
outside  or  inside  the  House,  and  wishes  to  draw  attention  to  the 
fact.  After  he  has  done,  the  incriminated  senator  explains  what 
he  said,  why  he  said  it,  and  what  he  meant.  Then  comes  a  wrangle 
of  tongues,  and  sundry  signs  of  tumult;  first  one  member  and  then 
another  bobs  up  his  head,  demanding  silence  and  order.  Tempers 
are  becoming  heated  and  patience  exhausted.  A  politician,  who  has 
an  unpleasantly  plain  way  of  putting  matters,  suggests  that  the  real 


THE    HOUSE    OF   COMMONS.  383 

problem  is  whether  A  did  or  did  not  mean  to  insinuate  thai  B  ought 
to  have  his  place  in  an  unmentionable  category  of  baseness.     This 

brings  things  to  a  head,  there  are  explanations,  verbal  refinements, 
compromises,  and  so  without  any  thing  being  real!.  L  or 

definitely  denied,  the  matter  drops,  and,  ruffled  and  agitata  -X  by  the 
preliminary  skirmish,  the  House  addresses  itself  to  the  business  of 
the  night. 

Calm  and  self-possessed  in  the  midst  of  a  storm  of  cheers,  min- 
gled,  it  may  be,  with  a  few  derisive  sounds,  the  orator  of  the  even- 
ing rises  to  his  feet;  his  voice  is  low,  his  manner  admirably  collected. 
Before  commencing  his  speech,  he  takes  care  to  see  that  every  thing 
he  may  want  in  the  course  of  its  delivery,  books  of  reference,  sundry 
documents,  and  a  tumbler  of  water,  are  within  easy  distance.  All 
this  he  does  as  tranquilly  as  if  he  were  about  to  sit  down  in  the  soli- 
tude of  his  study  for  a  hard  morning's  work  with  his  pen.  Nothing 
can  be  more  considerate  than  his  opening  language,  nothing  more 
reasonable  or  cogent  than  his  earlier  propositions.  Presently  Bom<  - 
thing  of  a  change  comes  over  the  spirit  of  his  utterances.  He  has 
heard  some  side  remark,  he  has  been  irritated  by  some  ironical 
cheer,  or  by  some  aggressive  "  no,  no."  In  a  moment  the  speaker 
is  transformed,  the  quiet  and  measured  tones  are  exchanged  for  a 
vehement  flow  of  rhetoric;  protest  follows  protest,  each  clothed  in 
language  of  new  vigor,  and  illustration  is  piled  upon  illustration. 
The  display,  which  all  admit  is  magnificent,  comes  to  an  end  at  last, 
and  after  the  motion  has  been  duly  seconded  by  a  political  friend 
there  rises  to  answer  from  the  ministerial  bench  a  middle-aged 
.  gentleman  of  rather  sleepy  manner,  but  who  gradually  works  him- 
self into  a  state  of  artificial  energy.  In  a  statement  which  makes 
little  pretence  to  rhetorical  merit,  and  which  from  beginning  to  end 
is  severely  business-like,  he  endeavors  to  show  that  the  statesman 
who  opened  the  debate  is  wrong  in  his  tacts,  and  untrustworthy  in 
his  conclusions.     The  speech  of  this  gentleman,  who  is  a  :.  c  of 

State,  possibly  the  leader  of  the  House — though,  as  a  rule,  it  is  upon 
the  leader  of  the  House  that  the  duty  falls  of  replying  on  the  whole 
discussion  towards  the  small  hours  of  the  morning — occupies,  per- 
haps, rather  more  than  an  hour.     It  is  now  close  upon   half-] 
seven,  and  honorable  members  commence  to  leave  the  Bouse,  intent 
upon  dinner.     Yet  though  the  benches  are  almost  deserted,  the  tide 
of  speech  still  rolls  on.     After  a  space  of  about  eighty  minutes,  : 
House  gradually  recovers  from  its  condition  of  emptiness  and  I 
guor.     A  brisk  interchange  of  fire  commences  along  the  whole  line 
of  the  two  political  armies.     The  sharpshooters  stand  forth,  and  in 


384  ENGLAND. 

more  or  less  animated  harangues  of  twenty  minutes  endeavor  to 
spread  confusion  among  the  ranks  of  their  opponents,  and  the  rest 
of  the  evening-  is  occupied  with  a  series  of  duels  in  the  conduct  of 
which  the  chief  of  the  two  sets  of  combatants  exercise  then*  author- 
ity and  give  counsel. 

All  this  time  there  have  been  busily  moving  in  and  out,  never 
sitting  down,  and  never  absent  from  the  House  for  many  minutes 
together,  four  or  five  gentlemen,  whose  chief  business  it  seems  to 
come  in,  look  around,  consult  a  piece  of  paper  in  their  hands,  make 
a  memorandum,  whisper  a  few  words  into  the  ear  of  an  honorable 
member,  and  then  disappear,  only  to  re-appear  and  again  to  do 
precisely  the  same  thing.  These  are  the  whips,  three  of  whom  are 
officials,  while  the  other  two  act  for  the  Opposition.  It  is  the  func- 
tion of  the  whip  to  see  that  the  members  of  his  party  are  on  the 
spot  when  a  division  is  imminent,  and  that  the  debate  is  conducted 
according  to  the  lines  laid  down.  But  he  has  other  work  than  this 
to  do.  He  must  be  imperturbable  in  his  temper,  unerring  in  his 
tact.  If  he  can  win  a  vote  he  must  accept  any  number  of  snubs, 
and  honorable  members  generally  are  very  fond  of  snubbing  whips. 
He  must  observe  every  thing,  and  appear  to  observe  nothing.  He 
must  be  omniscient  without  being  inquisitive.  He  will  carry  to  the 
Prime  Minister  a  faithful  and  particular  report  of  all  that  he  sees 
and  hears,  and  the  Prime  Minister  from  that  information  will  judge 
what  he  can  and  cannot  achieve,  and  will  regulate  his  policy  accord- 
ingly. The  Prime  Minister  may  regard  a  Bill  as  the  embodiment 
of  a  political  principle;  the  whip  looks  at  every  thing  not  in  the  light 
of  a  principle,  but  as  a  question. 

The  mere  machinery  by  which  a  Treasury  whip  brings  his  men 
to  the  House  is  simple  enough.  At  six  p.  m.,  he  knows  that  an 
important  division  will  be  taken  next  day.  He  communicates  with 
the  individual  who  acts  as  a  kind  of  clerk  to  the  Patronage  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  and  who,  be  the  Ministry  Whig  or  Tory,  pre- 
serves to  each  in  turn  on  its  accession  to  power  a  profound  silence 
as  to  the  tactics  of  its  predecessor.  This  gentleman,  on  receiving 
his  instructions,  repairs  to  his  office  in  King  Street,  the  lithograph 
machines  are  set  to  work,  and  before  the  arrival  of  the  post  next 
morning  the  doubly,  or  trebly,  or  quadruply  underscored  notes  are 
delivered  with  the  parliamentary  notices  to  honorable  members. 
Having  issued  the  whip,  the  great  thing  for  the  whip  himself  is  to 
see  that  members  do  not  slip  through  his  fingers.  Hence  he  may 
have  to  scour  the  clubs,  as  well  as  to  guard  religiously  the  portals  of 
the  Senate.     Further,  while  the  model  whip  must  be  vigilant  aa 


THE   HOUSE    OF   COMMONS. 

Cerberus  and  as  active  as  an  acrobat,  he  must  be  careful  nol  bo 
seem  the  despot  that  he  really  is.  He  must  be  absolutely  incor- 
ruptible, and  that  in  the  midst  of  transactions  which  have  a  flavor 
of  jobbery  about  them.  There  are  a  number  of  small  pieces  «>t' 
patronage  in  the  hands  of  the  Treasury  of  some  £80  or  £100  a  year, 
and  it  is  the  business  of  the  Treasury  whip,  as  Patronage  Secretary, 
to  discover  how  these  may  be  most  advantageously  disposed  o£ 
He  must  exercise  the  same  judgment  in  deciding  who  and  what  are 
the  proper  objects  of  assistance  from  the  private  funds  of  (lie  part}  ; 
an  individual,  it  may  be,  in  the  costly  struggle  of  a  contested  elec- 
I  tion,  or  possibly  a  newsixrper  in  the  depths  of  chronic  Lmpecuniosity. 
Nor  must  the  Treasury  whip  merely  pay  studious  heed  to  the  con- 
venience and  even  the  caprice  of  the  ministerial  flock.  It  is  neces- 
sary that  he  should  cultivate  the  good  opinion  of  his  opponents, 
and  it  is  especially  necessary  that  he  should  be  in  the  confidence  of 
the  gentleman  who,  as  his  personal  rival  on  the  Opposition  benches, 
is  the  candidate  for  the  post  which  he  himself  holds. 

But  let  us  suppose  that  the  hostilities  are  now  practically  con- 
cluded, and  that  the  final  issue  is  about  to  be  decided.  The  Speaker 
has  for  the  last  time  put  the  question.  The  cry,  "Division!  vision! 
'vision!"  has  been  rung  out  by  the  doorkeepers  and  police.  The 
'  division  bells  have  been  set  ringing  from  one  end  of  the  vast  build- 
ing to  the  other.  -Scouts  have  been  dispatched  in  swift  hansoms  to 
the  clubs  to  collect  laggards  and  deserters,  and  diners  and  smokers 
at  the  St.  Stephen's  Club,  hard  by,  have  been  startled  by  the  sudden 
sound  of  the  electric  alarum.  They  have  mustered  at  last,  and  a 
closely-packed  phalanx  has  been  collected  under  the  Peers'  gallery. 
The  final  order  is  given — ayes  to  the  right,  and  noes  to  the  left 
Slowly  and  quietly  do  they  file  out  into  the  respective  lobbies.  The 
doorkeepers  come  in,  see  that  no  honorable  member  is  left  behind, 
peer  under  the  benches  and  lock  the  doors.  In  the  course  of  two  or 
three  minutes  they  begin  to  defile  on  their  return  journey  throng  i 
the  re-opened  portals.  At  last,  in  the  space  perhaps  of  a  quarter  of 
fin  hour,  the  House  is  completely  refilled.  The  four  tellers,  bowing 
at  every  step,  march  up  to  the  Speaker's  table,  and  the  result  is 
known.  The  Government  have  a  majority  of  nearly  two  to  one.  It 
I  is  an  hour  past  midnight,  an  hour  at  which  some  latitude  is  to  be 
expected  and  allowed.  The  spirit  of  the  school-boy  lives  in  the  breast 
of  many  a  middle-aged  M.P.  Leaps  are  made  from  the  floors  to 
the  benches,  huzzas  are  heard.  No  one  knows  what  representaf 
govermnent  is,  till  he  has  beheld,  on  an  exciting  issue,  a  division  in 
the  House  of  Commons. 
25 


386  ENGLAND.     . 

But  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  House  always  transacts  its 
business  at  this  point  of  high-pressure,  and  if  we  wish  to  see  what 
are  its  more  normal  condition  and  atmosphere  we  must  visit  it  upon 
a  less  stirring  occasion.  The  House  of  Commons  is  the  manufactory 
of  statute  law,  and  its  first  business  is  to  legislate.  It  will,  there- 
fore, be  not  amiss  briefly  to  glance  at  the  various  stages  in  the  prog- 
ress of  a  Bill  through  Parliament,  from  the  moment  of  its  introduc- 
tion till  it  receives  the  royal  assent.  It  has  many  vicissitudes  to 
encounter,  and  many  risks  to  run.  First  comes  the  oral  statement 
of  the  purport  of  the  measure — technically  known  as  the  request  for 
leave'to  introduce  it — made  by  its  promoter,  who  afterwards  appears 
at  the  bar  of  the  House  and  is  summoned  by  the  Speaker.  Then 
follows  the  first  reading,  and  though  the  measure  might  be  opposed 
at  this  period,  it  is  seldom,  or  never,  that  such  opposition  is  forth- 
coming. The  real  contest  begins  when,  probably  in  about  three 
weeks  from  this  date,  the  motion  is  made  that  the  Bill  shall  be  read 
a  second  time.  The  debate  which  arises  on  the  second  reading  of 
any  measure  submitted  to  Parliament  centers  round  the  principle 
of  the  proposed  legislation,  and  if  that  legislation  is  not  vetoed  then, 
the  project,  though  it  may  be  materially  modified  in  committee,  is 
not  likely  to  be  ultimately  rejected.  Let  it  then  be  assumed  that  a 
parliamentary  Bill  has  passed  the  stage  of  its  second  reading — and 
if  the  measure  is  of  great  importance,  the  debate  which  will  have 
attended  this  consummation  will  have  been  full  of  interest  and  ex- 
citement— and  that  the  motion  before  the  House  at  the  present 
moment  is  that  the  assembled  members  resolve  themselves  into 
committee,  or,  as  the  Speaker  puts  it,  that  "I  do  now  leave  this 
chair."  Here  the  opposition  which  was  possible  on,  and  even  be- 
fore, the  first  reading  of  the  measure,  and  which  was  very  likely 
actively  forthcoming  on  the  second  reading,  may  be  renewed.  An- 
other long  debate  may  ensue,  amendments  may  be  proposed  which 
deny  the  expediency  of  any  legislation  at  all,  or  insist  that  if  legisla- 
tion be  forthcoming  it  shall  assume  a  different  shape.  The  babel  of 
tongues  is  once  more  heard,  and  the  familiar  scene  of  rhetorical* 
controversy  is  repeated.  At  last  the  motion  is  carried,  and  the 
House  of  Commons  has  affirmed  by  a  majority — though,  of  course, 
thei'e  need  not  have  been  any  division  on  the  subject  at  all — the 
proposal  to  go  into  committee,  and  to  replace  the  Speaker  for  the 
time  being  by  the  Chairman  of  Ways  and  Means.  There  is  little 
visible  difference  except  the  substitution  of  the  latter  for  the  former 
officer  of  the  House  between  the  Commons  in  committee  and  in 
ordinary  debate      The  step  taken  is  an  historical  survival  of  the  old 


THE   HOUSE    OE   COMMONS.  881 

days  of  the  Tudor  and  the  Stuart  despotism.     "The  exclusion  of 

the  king's  emissary  and  spy — their  Speaker  --was  the  sole  motive* 
why  the  Commons  elected  to  convert  themselves  into  a  conclave" 
called  a  committee,  that  they  might  meet  together  as  usual,  but 
without  his  presence."* 

Every  clause  of  the  measure  now  before  the  Bouse  is  gone* 
through,  amendments  are  forthcoming,  are  accepted  by  the  Gov- 
ernment or  by  the  authors  of  the  Bill,  or  are  rej  <•'  id  and  divided 
on,  as  the  case  may  be.  Sometimes  it  happens  that  an  amendment 
is  passed  in  committee  and  is  carried,  which  affects  a  vital  point    in 

,  the  measure,  and  materially  alters  its  character.  In  this  case  the 
member  who  is  specially  charged  with  the  interests  of  the  Bill  will 
perhaps  rise  and  propose  to  report  progress — in  other  words,  that 
the  House  shall  resume — so  that  he  may  have  an  opportunity  of 
consulting  with  his  colleagues.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  thorough- 
ness, and  occasionally  the  pertinacity,  exhibited  in  committee  of  tho 
whole  House.  Sometimes  there  are  set  speeches  made,  which  were" 
perhaps  intended  to  be  delivered  on  the  occasion  of  the  second  read- 
ing of  the  measure,  but  for  which  the  opportunity  could  not  be  found. 

,  For  the  most  part,  however,  the  discussion  is  conversational,  honor- 
able members  speaking  not  for  effect,  but  simply  with  an  eye  to 
business.  No  student  of  the  House  of  Commons  on  these  occasions 
can  fail  to  be  struck  by  the  ready  amount  of  varied  and  practical 
knowledge  which  its  members  display.  Honorable  gentlemen,  whoso 
voices  are  seldom  or  never  heard  in  the  course  of  great  debates,  riso 
up  again  and  again — for  when  the  House  is  in  committee  th<  re  is  no 
limit  to  the  number  of  times  which  a  member  may  speak — and  are 
found  to  have  a  minute  acquaintance  and  a  grasp  of  the  subject 
which  were  but  little  suspected.  It  may  be  lightly  said  of  a  par- 
ticular House  of  Commons  that  it  is  the  reverse  of  brilliant,  but 
whether  this  reproach  has  or  has  not  any  truth,  it  may  be  declared 
with  confidence  that  no  House  of  Commons  ever  sits  at  Westminster 
which  does  not  creditably  reflect  the  intelligence  of  the  nation,  and 
whose  members,  if  they  are  not  heaven-born  statesmen,  fail  t<>  dis- 
play a  singularly  creditable  aptitude  for,  and  insight  into,  public 
affairs. 

Our  imaginary  parliamentary  Bill  is  now  so  far  advanced  on  tho 
high  road  towards  becoming  a  parliamentary  Act,  that  it  has  em<  r  I 
from  committee  modified,  we  may  hope  improved,  but  still  substan- 
tially the  same  measure  as  when  it   was  read  a  second  time.     Tho 

*  "The  House  of  Commons,"  p.  11. 


388  ENGLAND. 

Speaker  is  once  more  in  his  chair,  and  the  motion  which  he  proposes 
to  the  House  is,  that  the  Bill,  as  amended  by  committee,  shall  be 
received.  Here,  again,  the  opportunity  of  opposition  is  renewed, 
nor  is  this  the  last  chance  that  the  more  obstinate  opponents  of 
the  measure  may  have  of  thwarting  it.  Having  gone  through  the 
Commons,  the  Bill  will  be  sent  up  to  the  Lords,  and  the  Upper 
House  will  have  precisely  the  same  power  of  remodeling  it  as  the 
Lower  has  enjoyed.  But  the  people's  representatives  do  not  sur- 
render their  right  of  veto  upon  any  changes  which  may  have  been 
insisted  in  the  measure  by  the  hereditary  legislators.  The  Bill  once 
more  formally  comes  before  them,  and  the  Commons  are  invited  to 
prorj ounce  upon  the  Lords'  amendments.  Granted  that  even  this 
further  ordeal  is  over,  and  that  nothing  remains  but  the  formal 
bestowal  of  the  royal  consent  for  the  measure  to  become  law,  that 
will  be  formally  given  upon  some  future  day.  One  afternoon  while 
petitions  are  being  presented  in  the  House  of  Commons,  a  rumor 
suddenly  runs  round  the  benches  that  there  is  a  message  from  the 
Lords.  In  a  moment  the  door  of  the  House  is  closed,  three  loud 
knocks  against  it  are  heard,  and  it  is  known  that  Black  Rod  demands 
admittance.  The  doorkeeper,  who  has  previously  slammed  the  portal 
in  the  face  of  this  august  official,  now  opens  a  wicket,  like  that  of  a 
Freemasons'  Lodge,  peers  out  at  Black  Bod  through  it,  next  unlocks 
the  door,  and  proclaims  in  a  loud  voice  to  the  assembled  Commons, 
"Message  from  the  Lords."  Then  the  door  opens  to  admit  a  gen- 
tleman with  a  cocked  hat  in  one  hand,  and  a  scepter  in  the  other, 
habited  in  black  breeches,  who  walks  with  a  bow  at  every  step  up 
the  House,  till  he  finds  himself  opposite  the  Speaker,  the  Speaker 
himself  rising  to  receive  him  and  returning  the  reverential  salute. 
He  then  informs  "this  Honorable  House,"  that  the  Lords  desire  its 
presence  to  hear  the  royal  assent  given  to  some  Bills.  After  having 
delivered  this  message  he  retires,  walking  backwards  from  the  Com- 
mons' Chamber,  bowing  all  the  way,  a  feat  not  to  be  accomplished 
without  considerable  practice,  as  well  as  natural  skill.  The  next 
thing  is  for  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  to  lift  the  mace  from  the  table, 
and  to  lead  the  way  to  the  bar  of  the  Peers'  Chamber,  followed 
by  the  Speaker,  who  is  the  representative  in  his  own  person  of  the 
collective  assemblage  over  which  he  presides.  Now  may  be  wit- 
nessed in  the  body  of  the  Peers'  Chamber  a  curious  and  interesting 
sight.  On  the  woolsack  is  seated  the  Lord  Chancellor,  as  the  chief 
of  the  commissioners  to  whom  the  Queen  has  delegated  that  attribute 
which  makes  her  supreme  over  the  national  legislature.  The  keeper 
of  Her  Majesty's  conscience  wears  a  triangular  cocked  hat  on  his 


THE   HOUSE    OE   COMMOt  | 

wig,  the  other  peers  composing  the  commission  wear  those  oocki  I 

hats  which  are  best  known  as  fore-and-aft,  and  are  also  dad  in  th(  It 
BCarlet  rohes.      Presently  there  advance  t'roin  the  table  a  sliorl  clerk 
and  a  tall  clerk,  of  whom  one  reads  the  commission,  in  which  Li    I 
declared  that  the  Sovereign  intrusts  her  royal  prerogative,  upon  I 
present  occasion,  \o  these  her  well-beloved  Lords,  and  a->  each  pe 
name  is  recited,  he  raises  his  hat.     Then,  last  of  all,  the  formula  m 
uttered  with  the  traditional  pronunciation  which  is  nol  exact] 
of  Parisian  French,  "La  reyne  le  veulfc"     It'  the  measure  hap] 
to  be  a  money  Bill,  the  phrase  used  is.  "  La  rej  ae  remercie  em  a  b    - 
snjets,  accepte  leurs  benevolences,  et  ainsi  le  veult." 

The  Speaker  cannot  leave  the  chair  o\'  the  House  of  Commons 
until  the  adjournment  is  formally  moved,  and  there  is  a  Btoiy  told, 
which  is  perfectly  true,  of  a  distressing,  or  rather  humorous,  con- 
tretemps, which  once  occurred  towards  the  close  of  a  sitting  of  ' 
House.  It  was  long  past  midnight,  the  House  was  deserted,  • 
by  the  Speaker  himself.  He,  however,  sat  on,  and  seemed  likely  to 
continue  to  sit  on,  for  no  member  had  formally  moved  the  adjourn* 
inent;  nor  could  he  he  released  from  this  durance  until  a  senator, 
recalled  from  his  homeward  course,  had  brought  forward  the  neces- 
sary motion,  in  the  appropriate  phraseology.  Mr.  Speaker  I  >•  oisonj 
writes  Mr.  Palgrave,  on  this  incident,  was,  "during  those  minut 
of  detention,  doing  penance  for  the  misdeeds  oi  his  pr<  decessorsj 
because  Speaker  Finch,  or  Speaker  Seymour,  obliging  their  ro J  1 
master,  and  disobeying  the  wish  of  the  House,  had  often  abruptly 
stopped  debate,  by  hurriedly  'pattering  down'  from  their  chair  I 
away  out  of  the  chamber;  practices  which,  centuries  ago,  compelli  I 
the  Commons  to  establish  as  a  rigid  rule,  that  come  wiiat  may,  their 
adjournment  must  ever  be  upon  a  motion  put  from  the  Chair,  v.  I  i 
every  consecpient  formality."  Instead  of  their  being  any  jealousy 
of  the  Speaker  now  as  the  representative  and  custodian  of  kingly 
power,  there  exists  an  immense  respect  for  his  office.  In  magnify- 
ing his  authority,  the  Commons  are  indeed  magnifying  their  own. 
Disrespect  to  him  is  disrespect  to  the  House.  He  is  the  depositary 
of  the  collective  dignities,  rights,  and  privileges  of  membera  Hence 
hi-  ruling  is  never  d<  murred  to:  and  the  member  who  did  QOi  com- 
port himself  deferentially  to  the  Chair  would  be  held  to  bare  sini  l 
against  the  unwritten  law  of  the  House.  Advised  bj  a  counsel,  i  - 
m  -essary  that  he  should  Lean  authority  on  matters  of  COnstitutioi  1 
law,  and  that  he  should  he  infallible  on  all  matters  of  partial:. 

procedure.    In  this  latter  task  he  is  much  I  by  the  Chief  CL 

at  the  table.     He  has  authority  over  the  wording  of  all  mo;  ml 


390  ENGLAND. 

of  all  questions  asked  or  proposed  to  be  asked  by  honorable  mem- 
bers of  the  Government;  and  it  is  his  duty  to  see  that  no  debatable 
matter,  and  nothing  which  can  be  construed  as  directly  involving  an 
argument  or  an  inference  is  imported  into  them. 

What  ordinarily  takes  place  when  the  sitting  of  the  House  has 
.  come  to  an  end  is,  that  the  Speaker  rising  from  his  chair,  bows,  not 
as  might  have  been  supposed,  to  the  leader  of  the  House,  but  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  who  acts  as  his  adjutant,  and  who  returns 
the  obeisance.  Immediately  after  this  is  audible  the  cry,  "  Who  goes 
home '?  " — a  relic  of  those  times  when  members  of  Parliament  used 
to  make  up  parties  for  the  homeward  journey  to  protect  themselves 
against  the  attacks  of  highwaymen.  The  police  m  the  lobbies,  how- 
ever, do  not  echo  this  shout,  but  simply  announce  "  House  is  up." 
Something  must  be  said  about  a  few  of  the  chief  rules  and  prac- 
tices of  the  House  of  Commons.  No  member  of  Parliament  can 
address  the  House,  unless  there  is  before  it  a  substantive  motion; 
if,  therefore,  he  wishes  to  direct  its  attention  to  some  matter,  per- 
sonal to  himself,  or  if  he  wishes  generally  to  attack  the  conduct  of 
the  Government,  and  has  had  no  opportunity  for  doing  this  in  the 
course  of  regular  debate,  he  jmts  himself  in  order,  by  rising  after 
the  questions  have  been  asked,  and  announcing  that  at  the  com- 
mencement of  his  remarks  he  will  conclude  with  a  motion.  This 
motion  is  one  for  the  adjournment  of  the  House,  and  it  is  theoret- 
ically open  to  members  to  bring  it  forward  whenever  they  think  fit. 
But  inasmuch  as  it  involves  a  considerable  loss  of  time,  there  is  the 
strongest  feeling  against  resorting  to  the  expedient,  save  upon  the 
most  pressing  urgency;  and  unless  the  occasion  be  extremely  grave, 
or  the  reputation  and  popularity  of  the  member  moving  the  adjourn- 
ment such  that  they  can  submit  to  a  very  considerable  strain,  the 
experiment  will  be  made  amid  a  storm  of  angry  and  disapprov- 
ing shouts.  The  House  almost  always  adjourns,  if  news  suddenly 
reaches  it  of  any  very  touching  or  terrible  event.  It  did  so  when 
there  arrived  the  news  of  the  murder  of  President  Lincoln;  and 
much  more  recently,  when  it  was  announced  that  one  of  its  mem- 
bers had  just  expired  in  the  Library. 

The  Speaker  has,  among  many  other  duties,  two  particular  func- 
tions to  discharge.  In  the  first  place,  he  has  to  see  that  the  debate 
does  not  stray  hopelessly  from  its  original  subject;  in  the  second, 
that  none  of  the  laws  of  parliamentary  courtesy  or  business  are  in- 
fringed ;  thirdly,  it  rests  with  him  very  much  to  arrange  the  plan  of 
a  debate.  As  regards  the  first,  it  has  been  illustrated  recently,  in  a 
case  spoken  of  by  Mr.  Palgrave,  when  the  subject  of  the  discussion 


THE    HOUSE    OF   COMMONS.  891 

was  the  silk  duty.     One  honorable  member  seized  the  a  of 

delivering-  an  harangue  denouncing  the  love  oi  moo  3  and  its  dete- 
riorating effects  on  ;h  •  national  character.  The  Sp  ■!.  rtl  .  inter- 
posed, and  endeavored  to  guide  the  discussion  back  t.»  its  proper 
channel;  a  second  diversion  took  place  when  another  bonorable 
member  drew  attention   to  the  taxes  imposed  on  co  d  the 

Speaker  interfered  again;  a  third  time,  the  discussion   1 

from  silk  to  the  state  of  commerce  generally,  and  once  1 

Speaker   mildly  protested.     As  regards   the    real    fun< 
Speaker,  it  is  comparatively  seldom  that  he  is  called  up  exer- 

cise his  authority.     The  personalities  which  were  common   in   t 
House  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  have  almost  ured 

now.     As  regards  the  third  of  the  attributes  of  this  fundi  the 

management  of  debates,  it  is  one  in  which  impartiality  is  ab 
essential,  and  which  is  usually  exercised,  in  common  with  the  whips, 
on  both  sides.     The  theory,  of  coins',  is  that  a  memb  ae  to 

speak  has  only  to  catch  the  Speaker's  eve.  and  to  receive  his  nod; 
but,  as  a  matter  of  tact,  it  is  pretty  well  known  and  Bettl  Lb  Pore- 
hand,  whom  the  Speaker  will  contrive  to  see.  The  member  of  Par- 
liament in  question  has  either  intimated  directly  to  the  Speaker  his 
wish  to  take  part  at  a  particular  stage  in  a  particular  debate,  and 
has  received  his  approval  of  the  idea,  or  else,  having  mentioned  the 
matter  to  the  whip  of  his  party,  has  secured  for  himself  a  place  on 
the  list  of  speakers,  which  is  suggested  to  the  occupant  of  the  chair. 
Every  member,  when  speaking,  is  obliged  to  stand  with  his  head 
uncovered,  unless  indeed  he  happens  to  draw  attention  ;  thing 

connected  with  the  division,  while  the  division  is  actually  in  prog- 
ress, in  which  case  he  speaks  sitting  and  covered.  Private  mem- 
bers have,  as  has  been  already  said,  the  right  to  bring  forward  their 
motions  on  those  nights  on  which  the  order  is  Supply.  Now  Supply 
can  only  be  granted  in  committee;  therefore,  the  first  thing  to  \<<- 
done  is  for  the  Speaker  to  put  the  question,  when  the  words  Supply 
Committee  are  read  by  the  clerk  at  the  table,  "Thai  1  now  leave 
the  chair."  Upon  this  the  member  who  has  prec  I  -nee  with  the 
motion   of   which   he    has  given  notice,   rises   up   and    1  1  The 

Speaker  thi  ;i  pats  to  the  House,  as  an  amendment  to  the  question, 
"That  I  now  leave  the  chair,"  the  proposal  to  ins  it  ;l:';. ■:■  the  word 
"that"th<  on  to  be  brought  forward  by  the  particular  member, 

instead  of  the  words,  "I  now  have  the  chair.'     The  Speaker  con- 
tinues in  his  place,  and  the  motion  of  the  private  member  pfc- 
ed  or                                          be.     Supposing  that  there  art  <>t! 
motions  on  the  paper,  and  that  there   is  tine'  to  d              I        t,  it  is 


392  ENGLAND. 

one  of  the  rules  of  the  House  that  they  should  not  be  divided  on, 
the  explanation  being,  that  the  House  has  already  decided  that  the 
question  shall  be  put,  that  the  Speaker  shall  leave  the  chair,  that  it 
cannot  reconsider  the  decision,  and  this  being  impossible,  that  there 
is  no  way  of  moving  an  amendment,  which  is  the  form  technically 
assumed  by  every  motion  on  Supply. 

As  the  Speaker  is  the  great  leviathan  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
the  incarnation  and  the  tutelary  governor  of  its  dignities,  rights,  and 
privileges,  so  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  is  the  officer  who  guards  his  j^er- 
sonal  majesty — and  therefore  that  of  the  House — while  the  clerks, 
at  whom  we  glanced  in  our  hurried  bird's-eye  view  of  the  chamber, 
are  his  agents  and  deputies.  Though  there  are  only  three  clerks 
acfaially  sitting  at  the  table  of  the  House  of  Commons,  the  staff  of 
House  of  Commons'  clerks  includes  a  great  many  others.  There 
are  indeed  no  fewer  than  four  distinct  offices  in  the  House,  each 
furnished  with  a  clerkly  staff  numbering  some  six  or  seven  officials. 
Of  these  the  first  is  the  Public  Bill  Office,  which  receives  and  exam- 
ines public  Bills,  is  responsible  for  correct  printing,  and  the  inser- 
tion of  all  amendments;  the  Journal  Office  sees  that  the  diary  of 
the  House  of  Commons  is  properly  drawn  up  from  the  vote;  and 
also  by  keeping  an  account  of  these  votes  acts  as  a  check  on  the 
Treasury;  the  Committee  Office  keeps  the  Minutes,  and  sends  clerks 
to  the  Committee.  The  record  of  the  business  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons actually  dispatched  is  known  by  the  name  of  Minutes,  while 
the  Order  Book  relates  to  the  impending  business;  both  are  in  the 
hands  of  the  clerks.  As  regards  the  private  Bill  procedure,  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  Private  Bill  Office  to  see  that  these  measures  are  in 
proper  form,  and  the  Speaker's  counsel  looks  through  them  to  see 
that  there  is  no  informality.  In  addition  to  the  subjects  already 
mentioned  are  those  which  come  within  the  province  of  the  private 
Bill;  all  questions  relating  to  naturalization  and  devolution  of  estate 
come  within  its  scope.  In  addition  to  the  Committee  on  Petitions, 
there  are  several  other  committees  which  meet  periodically  during 
the  session.  Of  these  the  most  popular  and  the  best  attended  is 
the  Committee  on  Kitchen  and  Refreshments,  the  only  one  at  which 
members  are  allowed  to  smoke,  and  which  meets  on  Wednesday 
afternoons  when  the  House  of  Commons  is  sitting;  though  its  pro- 
ceedings only  become  of  any  great  interest  or  importance  when  dis- 
cussions of  an  exceptionally  stormy  character  are  expected.  With 
the  exception  of  this  committee,  which  meets,  as  has  been  said,  on 
Wednesday,  these  bodies  generally  assemble  on  Monday  or  Thurs- 
day, Tuesday  or  Friday.     The  nomination  of  members  of  Parlia- 


THE    HOUSE    OF   COMMONS.  H03 

ment  to  sit  on  these  practically  belongs  to  the  undcr-uhips  on  the 
two  sides.  Altogether,  there  will  be  probably  mtting  at  the  height 
of  the  session,  from  fifteen  to  twenty  committees,  many  of  them 
being,  of  course,  select  ones,  to  which  Bills  are  referred,  and 
whose  deliberations  immensely  assist  the  progress  of  parliamentary 
business. 

Canning  was  called  by  John  Wilson  ("Christopher  North")  "the 

last  of  the  rhetoricians,"  and  often,  since  his  death,  the  complaint 
has  been  hoard  that  the  art  of  parliamentary  eloquence  is  extinct; 
it  has  been  said,  "There  are  long  speeches,  sarcastic  speeches,  and 
crack  speeches;  but  they  are  not  such  speeches  as  fell  from  the  lips 
of  Burke,  Pitt,  and  Fox,  or,  more  recently  still,  from  Canning  and 
Brougham."  The  truth  of  this  remark  may  be  frankly  admitted; 
let  us  endeavor  to  explain  the  conditions  winch  may  be  held  to  ac- 
count for  the  fact.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  as  unreasonable  to  expect 
the  oratory  of  Burke  and  Pitt,  or  of  Canning  and  Brougham,  in  a 
Parliament  elected  under  household  suffrage,  as  it  would  be  to  ex- 
pect their  policy.  The  policy  of  an  administration  depends  upon 
the  character  of  the  House  of  Commons  for  the  time  being;  bo,  too, 
must  the  standard  of  parliamentary  oratory.  "The  grand  debate, 
the  popular  harangue,"  which  we  look  for  and  find  in  the  Georgian 
era  of  parliamentary  eloquence,  existed  under  a  condition  of  tilings 
which  cannot  be  recalled  at  will.  Instead  of  the  real  opposition  be- 
tween Whig  and  Tory,  at  a  tune  when  they  differed  on  fundamental 
principles,  and  were  perpetually  challenging  each  other  on  moment- 
ous issues,  that  struck  at  the  root  of  government,  we  seem  to  have 
little  more  now  than  the  antagonism  between  the  ins  and  the  outs. 
From  the  Exclusion  Bill  to  1714  Whigs  and  Tories  were  separated 
by  the  disputed  succession  of  a  Popish  sovereign.  Later  on,  in  the 
days  of  Lord  Melbourne  even,  there  was  the  controversy  between 
the  country  gentleman  and  the  commercial  class — the  former  com- 
plaining that  the  corruption  exercised  by  the  latter  upon  the  Gov- 
ernment was  fatal  to  the  best  interests  of  the  realm.  From  the  days 
of  George  III.  to  William  IV.  Whigs  and  Tories  were  mutually  dis- 
tinguished by  different  views  of  the  royal  prerogative.  Blor  over, 
the  time  was  eminently  calculated  to  inspire  patriots  and  politicians 
with  great  thoughts,  and  with  noble  language  in  which  to  expr< 
them.  The  existence  of  England  as  a  nation  was  menaced,  and  ev<  n 
domestic  policy  was  debated  from  an  imperial  standpoint.  The  sit- 
uation was  full  of  dignity  and  danger.  Men  rose  to  it  unconsciously, 
and  the  entire  atmosphere  was  ennobling.  When  the  thirty  tyrants 
at  Athens  wished  to  check  the  liood  of  Attic  eloquence,  fchey  reven     1 


394  ENGLAND. 

the  bema  on  the  Pnn,  so  that  the  speaker  should  no  longer  catch  Ins 
inspiration  from  the  prospect  of  the  sea,  the  scene  of  the  greatest 
Athenian  triumphs.  This  simple  historic  circumstance  remains  for 
all  ae-es  the  symbol  of  the  influence  which  national  spirit  must  exer- 
cise  over  national  eloquence.  Year  after  year  the  tendency  asserts 
itself  more  and  more  with  the  constituencies  to  send  to  Parliament 
I  as  then  representatives  men  who  are  rather  specialists  than  states- 
men. The  favored  candidate  is  he  who  has  made  a  particular  study 
of  some  particular  branch  of  political  or  social  knowledge;  who  is 
master  of  the  whole  question  of  local  taxation;  who  is  versed  in  all 
the  mysteries  of  poor-law  administration;  who  is  conversant  with 
Bank  Currency  and  Consolidated  Funds;  with  drains  and  sewers; 
with  School  Boards  and  the  new  Educational  Code.  And  this  is  in- 
evitable. The  British  elector,  in  showing  himself  more  or  less  a  be- 
liever in  the  philosophy  of  Mr.  Graclgrind,  is  true  to  the  practical 
spirit  of  this  very  practical  age.  There  is  little  or  no  scope  for  the 
exercise  of  imagination  or  the  display  of  taste  in  the  arena  of  politi- 
cal discussion.  "What  the  House  of  Commons  has  for  the  most  part 
to  consider,  is  not  so  much  broad  questions  of  policy,  or  great  prob- 
lems which  lie  at  the  root  of  society  and  government,  as  technical 
points  of  political  economy,  and  dry  and  minute  details  of  commer- 
cial and  industrial  arrangement.  The  machine  of  government  has 
grown  terribly  complex;  its  movement  is  necessarily  less  rapid.  It 
would  be  unreasonable  to  expect  from  those  who  regulate  it,  the 
rush  and  vigor  of  the  age  of  Pitt  and  Fox. 

Again,  the  House  of  Commons  is  necessarily,  in  a  sense,  the  edu- 
cational miiTor  of  the  nation,  and  its  speakers  naturally  reflect  the 
dominant  intellectual  influences  of  their  day.  The  present  age  is 
/  one  of  educational  transition.  The  literary,  and  above  all,  the  clas- 
sical hues  of  the  past  are  being  deserted.  The  expulsion  of  the 
Muses  from  the  national  curriculum  is  rapidly  becoming  an  accom- 
plished fact,  and  the  goddess  Scientia  is  being  enthroned  in  their 
place.  The  chief  cause  of  the  richness  and  elegance  of  the  general 
standard  of  debate  which  formerly  existed  in  the  Commons  was  the 
education  which  its  members  received.  The  groundwork  of  that 
education  was  literary;  the  intellectual  influences,  to  which  they 
were  from  the  first  subjected,  was  classical.  Eloquence  and  oratory 
are  essentially  Greek  and  Roman  arts,  and  our  first  statesmen  have, 
without  exception,  learned  them  from  the  Greek  and  Roman  models. 
The  entire  atmosphere  of  the  House  was  suffused,  as  it  were,  with  a 
classical  aroma.  The  ablest  metaphors,  the  happiest  repartees  were 
drawn  from  the  classical  store-house. 


THE    HOUSE    OF   COMMONS.  395 

But  if  we  have  seen  the  last  of  the  school  of  literary  and  classi- 
cal speakers,  there  is  no  reason  whatever  to  anticipate  a  decline  in 
the  debating-  power  of  the  popular  chamber  of  the  legislature.  There 
may  be  less  of  art  or  artifice,  but  there  is  no  diminution  of  vigor,  nor 
is  there  any  slackness  of  appreciation  on  the  part  of  the  people's 
representatives  of  really  good  speaking.  The  House  of  Commons  is 
always  profoundly  impressed  by  any  thing  which  strikes  them  as 
unlabored  and  natural.  Hence  the  great  success  of  Mr.  Bright's 
speeches  in  Parliament  as  elsewhere ;  they  are  instinct  with  genuine 
pathos,  a  pathos  which  is  dependent  not  merely  on  the  wonderful 
simplicity  of  the  language  itself,  but  on  the  tone  and  manner  of  the 
speaker.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  nothing  which  the  House  of 
Commons  objects  to  more  than  the  assumption  of  infallibility  on  the 
part  of  any  of  its  members.  The  House  is  in  this,  as  in  many  other 
things,  a  reflection  of  the  most  strongly  pronounced  traits  in  our 
national  character.  The  feelings  which  dominate  the  public  school, 
the  regiment,  the  college,  the  profession,  and  any  other  society  of 
Englishmen  of  whatever  age,  are  also  those  which  are  represented 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  Simplicity,  directness,  business-like  dis- 
j>atch — all  these  are  qualities  eminently  valuable  in  the  eyes  of 
members  of  Parliament.  There  is  no  reproach  greater  than  that 
of  exaggerated  self-sufficiency  to  be  brought  against  one  of  the  re- 
presentatives of  the  people.  Just  as  the  House  dislikes  above  every 
thing  the  man  who  shows  that  he  is  free  from  any  kind  of  doubt  or 
scruple  upon  every  subject,  so  also  does  it  show  the  sentiment  of  its 
dislike  in  an  unmistakable  manner.  The  stubborn  member  who  will 
not  yield  to  its  collective  will  when  indubitably  expressed,  the  mem- 
ber who  speaks  with  the  affectation  of  dogmatic  certainty  on  all  sub- 
jects, the  member  who  is  under  the  influence  of  strong  animosities, 
members  who  have  bad  tempers,  or  who  are  without  the  gift  of  con- 
cealing them,  usually  fail  in  parliamentary  life.  It  must  always  be 
recollected  that  English  politics  are  free  from  that  acerbity  which 
infuses  the  venom  of  bitterness  into  the  political  life  of  France,  and 
that  political  differences  do  not  operate  as  any  bar  to  personal 
good-will. 


/ 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

THE     HOUSE     OF    LORDS. 

Reasons  for  treating  the  House  of  Lords  after  the  House  of  Commons — Reasons 
■why  the  Proceedings  of  the  Peers  have  latterly  increased  in  Interest  and 
Importance — Class  of  Questions  in  which  the  House  of  Lords  from  its 
Composition  is  specially  competent  to  instruct  the  Public — General  Re- 
lations between  the  Two  Houses— Legislative  Activity  of  the  Lords — 
Difficulties  of  Young  Peers — The  House  of  Lords  in  Action — Inside  the 
House — Points  of  Difference  from  Commons — The  Whips — Questions — 
Progress  of  Debate — General  Conduct  of  Business — Questions  of  Possible 
Reforms — Future  of  Parliament. 

F  considerations  of  dignity,  and  of  fidelity  to  the  letter  of  the 
Constitution  had  influenced  us,  we  should  not  have  given  pri- 
ority of  treatment  to  the  House  of  Commons  over  the  House  of 
Lords.  But  our  object  is  to  show  the  British  Constitution  actually 
at  work,  not  to  analyze  its  component  parts  in  a  state  of  quiescence. 
The  practical  business  of  Parliament  is  to  maintain  the  government 
and  to  legislate.  Neither  can  be  done  apart  from  the  House  of 
Commons;  and  if  that  House  has  made  up  its  mind  on  which  way 
either  the  one  or  the  other  task  is  to  be  accomplished,  it  may  be 
predicted  with  certainty  that  the  House  of  Lords  will  eventually 
shape  its  course  accordingly.  But  to  say  this  is  not  to  imply  that 
in  its  own  particular  sphere  the  House  of  Lords  is  subordinated  to 
the  House  of  Commons.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  since  IS 74  an  unusu- 
ally large  number  of  national  measures  have  originated  in  the 
chamber  of  our  hereditary  legislators;  it  has  been  the  scene  of 
many  debates  of  great  moment  and  of  rare  excellence;  it  has  wit- 
nessed the  rise  and  develojnnent  of  one  or  two  parliamentary  repu- 
tations on  a  more  striking  scale  than  the  House  of  Commons  has 
known.  The  statesmanship,  the  oratory,  the  wisdom,  and  the  de- 
bating power  of  the  Peers  will  compare  favorably  with  the  best 
standard  of  the  Commons.  It  was  Sir  Robert  Peel's  opinion  that 
the  statesman  primarily  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  Her  Maj- 
esty's Government  could  not  possibly  discharge  all  the   duties  of 


THE    HOUSE    OF  LORDS.  397 

his  position  in  the  House  of  Commons;  and  in  an  address  which  ho 
delivered  in  August,  1876,  at  Aylesbury,  Lord  Beaconsfield  may  bo 
said  to  have  indorsed  and  emphasized  ibis  verdict  of  his  ancient 
foe.  Further,  there  is  the  noticeable  fact  that  half  of  the  Select 
Committee  known  as  the  Cabinet,  which  initiates  the  legislation  of 
the  country,  and  on  whose  conduct  the  fate  of  the  Government  and 
parties  depend,  have  seats  in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  Ministry 
formed  in  1874  has,  in  fact,  been  extremely  weak  in  debating  re- 
sources and  rhetorical  capacity  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  ab- 
normally strong  in  the  House  of  Lords.  This  is  exactly  the  reverse 
of  the  Conservative  situation  thirty  years  ago,  when  Lord  Derby, 
then  Lord  Stanley,  was  summoned  in  the  life-time  of  his  father  to 
the  Upper  House,  to  reinforce  and  to  inspire  the  enfeebled  and 
dispirited  Tories. 

Again,  the  character  of  the  debates  in  which  the  House  of  Lords 
has  been  principally  engaged  has  been  favorable  to  the  display  of 
those  peculiar  qualities  which  secure  a  strong  influence  for  the  Peers 
over  public  opinion.  Knowledge  is  power,  and  where  knowledge  is 
authority  is  sure  to  drift.  To  address  the  House  of  Lords  on  cer- 
I  tain  questions  is  to  address  a  jury  of  experts.  Not  only  is  there 
represented  in  that  House  all  the  matured  wisdom  and  ripe  experi- 
ence of  the  Commons,  added  to  all  that  is  most  characteristic  of  the 
traditions,  pride,  and  prejudice  of  the  peerage:  among  those  who 
take  their  place  in  the  ranks  of  our  hereditary  legislators  are  men 
who  have  controlled  important  dependencies  of  the  Empire  of  Great 
Britain,  and  who  have  acquired  an.  insight,  by  long  residence  in  for- 
eign capitals,  into  the  diplomatic  secrets  of  European  Cabinets,  and 
into  the  hidden  tendencies  of  the  popular  will — former  and  future 
ambassadors,  the  governors  of  important  colonies,  generals  who 
have  held  the  highest  military  commands,  viceroys  who  have  ad- 
ministered our  Indian  possessions,  in  comparison  with  which  the 
British  Isles  are  but  as  a  speck  in  the  ocean;  these,  to  say  nothing 
of  men  who  have  been  steeped  in  the  atmosphere  of  statesmanship 
and  office  from  their  infancy,  are  prominent  in  the  Peers'  assembly 
during  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.*     Hence,  seeing 

*  It  is  further  to  be  noticed  that  the  principal  leaders  of  debate  in  the  House 
of  Commons  are  now— more  than  formerly— transferred  to  the  House  of  Lor.! ;. 
Thus  the  two  front  benches  of  the  House  of  Lords  in  1879  number  among  tin  ir 
occupants  the  former  Mr.  Disraeli  (Lord  Beaconsfield),  Mr.  Gathorne  Hardy 
(Lord  Cranbrook\  Sir  Roundell  Palmer  (Lord  Selbornc),  Mr.  Bruce  (Lord  Abcr- 
dare),  Mr.  Card  well  (Lord  Cardwell)— all  of  them  formerly  parliamentary  1 
ers  in  the  Commons. 


393  ENGLAND. 

that  in  the  past  few  years  foreign  policy  has  been  a  conspicuous 
theme  in  Pailiamentary  debate,  the  proceedings  of  the  House  of 
Lords  have  acquired  a  new  interest  and  importance.  Granting  that 
the  average  of  rhetorical  skill  in  both  Houses  is  pretty  nearly  equal, 
the  average  of  superior  merit  is  higher  in  the  Peers  than  in  the 
Commons.  Further,  the  speeches  made  in  the  House  of  Lords  have 
not  only  been  often  better  than  those  made  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, they  have  often  been  better  reported;  first,  because  as  a  rule 
they  are  shorter;  secondly,  because  they  are,  as  a  rule,  delivered 
much  earlier.  Only  on  three  occasions  since  the  Reform  Bill  of 
1832  has  there  been  am-  appearance  or  danger  of  a  collision  be- 
tween the  two  Houses  of  Parliament.  The  first  of  these  was  in 
1860.  On  May  21st,  the  House  of  Lords  had  thrown  out  the  Bill 
for  the  remission  of  the  paper  tax  by  a  majority  of  89.  The  Oppo- 
sition was  successfully  led  by  the  venerable  Lord  Lyndhurst,  who, 
on  his  81st  birthday,  spoke  with  all  the  eloquence  and  acumen 
which  had  made  him  famous  half  a  century  before.  The  question 
was  whether  the  Peers  had  a  right  to  reject  a  money  Bill.  It  was 
admitted  that  thev  had  no  ri^ht  so  to  amend  a  monev  Bill  as  to 
change  the  amount  or  incidence  of  taxation  in  any  degree.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  was  shown  by  Lord  Lyndhurst  that  the  right  now 
claimed  by  the  Peers  of  rejection  had  been  exercised  before,  and 
was  logically  implied  in  the  discussion  by  the  House  of  Lords  of 
such  legislation.  These  arguments  were  not  replies  to  the  conten- 
tion that  it  was  inexpedient  to  assert  the  privilege,  and  as  is  gener- 
ally the  case  when  a  consideration  of  technical  legality  arises,  the 
controversy  was  ultimately  decided,  not  by  the  division  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  but  on  the  broad  grounds  of  constitutional  policy  and  pru- 
dence. The  matter  was  first  relegated  to  a  committee,  and  then 
settled  by  Lord  Palmerston's  resolutions  of  July  5th,  1860.  It  is 
only  necessary  to  mention  by  name  the  two  other  instances  in  which 
differences  between  the  House  of  Lords  and  Commons  have  menaced 
a  legislative  deadlock.  Of  these  the  former  occurred  when  the  Bill 
for  the  abolition  of  the  Irish  Church  debate  was  going  through  Par- 
liament in  186S,  the  Peers  ultimately  giving  way.  The  latter  took 
place  three  years  later,  when  then  lordships  rejected  the  Bill  for 
the  abolition  of  army  purchase.  Since  then,  unless,  indeed,  it  be 
during  the  first  and  second  sessions  of  the  Parliament  elected  in 
1874,  when  the  Public  Worship  Bill — so  far  as  concerned  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  discretionary  power  should  be  vested  in  the  bish- 
ops, or  only  in  the  archbishops — and  the  Appellate  Jurisdiction  Bill, 
respectively,  underwent  considerable  modification  at  the  instance  of 


THE   HOUSE    OF  LORDS.  399 

the  Lords,  there  has  been  no  hitch  in  the  amicable  relations  of  tlio 
two  Houses.  The  legislative  activity  of  the  House  of  Lords  has  also 
been  noticeable  since  1874.  The  Public  Worship  Bill  in  1874,  and 
the  Judicature  Act  in  1875,  both  owed  their  parentage  to  our  hered- 
itary legislators,  and  in  the  following  year,  the  Oxford  Reform  Bill 
first  saw  the  light  in  front  of  the  woolsack,  and  was  the  occasion  of 
one  of  the  most  noteworthy  speeches  of  the  session  from  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury. 

It  is  to  be  noticed  also  that  the  recent  debates  in  the  House  of 
Lords  have  not  only  been  in  many  cases  of  a  high  order  of  excel- 
lence, but  that  they  have  introduced  to  public  attention  a  larger 
proportion  of  capable  candidates  for  political  eminence  compara- 
tively, if  not  absolutely,  than  has  been  observed  in  the  House  of 
Commons  elected  in  1873.  This  is  the  more  remarkable,  seeing 
that  the  number  of  those  who  habitually  take  part  in  parliamentary 
debate  is  much  smaller  in  the  House  of  Lords  than  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  In  the  latter,  the  total  may  perhaps,  roughly  speaking, 
be  fifty,  in  the  former  it  is  probably  not  more  than  fifteen.  Fur- 
ther, difficult  as  it  may  be  for  a  young  and  untried  man  to  get  the 
ear  of  the  House  of  Commons,  that  difficulty  is  very  much  greater 
in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  young  peer  rises  full  of  suppressed 
fire  and  enthusiasm,  to  meet  with  as  chilling  a  reception  as  a  well- 
bred  audience  can  give.  He  is  ignored;  he  is  silenced  by  a  general 
undertone  of  conversation;  or  he  finds  that  he  is  defeated  by  the 
peculiar  acoustic  qualities  of  the  chamber  in  which  he  essays  to 
speak.  It  is  a  different  thing  if  he  belongs  to  a  family  traditionally 
famous  in  parliamentary  annals.  If  he  is  a  Duke  of  Richmond,  a 
Marquis  of  Salisbury,  an  Earl  of  Derby,  Carnarvon,  or  Clarendon, 
or  the  representative  of  any  other  great  political  house,  he  will  be 
sure  of  attention.  But  at  all  times  the  sphere  of  active  statesman- 
ship in  the  House  of  Lords  has  conformed  to  the  conditions  of  a 
close  borough,  and  unknown  aspirants  to  parliamentary  fame  have 
not  been  encouraged,  and  have  proclaimed  their  ambition  only  to 
insure  collapse.  That  this  tradition  has  to  a  great  extent  been 
broken  through  in  the  course  of  the  past  year  must  be  partly  per- 
haps ascribed  to  the  circumstance  that  the  House  of  Lords  lias  sig- 
nally ceased  to  be  under  the  domination  of  one  or  two  individuals, 
and  thus  for  the  present  the  paralyzing  influences  which  such  a  re- 
gime naturally  exercises  upon  the  rest  of  its  members  have  pas  i  1 
away.  Its  ruling  spirits,  of  course,  assert  themselves.  But  nothing 
like  the  dictatorship  which,  in  times  past,  Lord  Thurlow,  Lord  El- 
don,  the  Duke  of  "Wellington,  and  Lord  Lyndhurst  exercised,  can 


400  ENGLAND. 

now  be  found.  There  is  undoubtedly  a  growing  tendency  among 
their  lordships  to  give  the  rising  talent  of  their  House  a  chance,  and 
this  tendency  has  already  had  the  happiest  results. 

For  the  purpose  of  acquiring  a  general  view  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  its  chief  members,  and  the  manner  in  which  business  is  con- 
ducted therein,  perhaps  it  will  be  permitted  to  ask  the  reader  to 
accompany  us  thither  in  imagination,  on  any  afternoon  during  the 
session.  It  is  essential  that  the  weather  should  be  fine,  for  the 
Peers'  Chamber  is  dependent  upon  the  beams  of  the  sun  for  its 
picturesqueness  of  effect.  It  is  five  o'clock,  and  in  another  place — 
the  House  of  Commons — work  has  been  going  on  for  three-quarters 
of  an  hour.  Most  of  the  gentlemen  strolling-  through  St.  James's 
Park  in  the  direction  of  Palace  Yard,  or  dismounting  from  carriage 
and  horse,  there  or  at  the  entrance  to  St.  Stephen's  from  the  side  of 
Poets'  Corner,  are  peers,  and  from  then'  number  it  may  be  inferred 
that  an  interesting  or  inrportant  debate  is  expected.  The  House  is 
beginning  gradually  to  fill  as  the  visitor  takes  his  seat,  not  behind 
the  bar,  nor  in  front  of  the  House — positions  the  best  for  the  pur- 
poses of  hearing,  but  the  worst  for  purposes  of  vision — but  in  the 
front  row  of  the  strangers'  gallery.  The  afternoon  sun  pours  in 
through  the  painted  windows,  illuminating  the  gilding  of  the  decora- 
tions and  bathing  in  luster  the  green  carpet  with  its  prince's  feath- 
ers of  gold,  and  the  crimson  morocco  of  the  benches.  If  there  is 
something  barbaric  in  the  hues  and  patterns,  there  is  some  effect 
of  historic  dignity  in  the  statues  of  the  famous  founders  of  noble 
houses  which  adorn  the  niches  in  the  wall,  and  under  which  are  in- 
scribed names  immortalized  in  our  national  history.  On  each  side 
of  the  chamber,  save  the  side  allotted  to  reporters,  is  the  Peeresses' 
gallery— that  structure  against  which  Lord  Redesdale  so  emphatic- 
ally protested,  on  the  ground  that  it  would  make  the  House  of  Lords 
like  a  casino.  If  gay  dresses  can  produce  this  result  there  is  cer- 
tainly some  danger  of  Lord  Redesdale's  apprehension  being  fulfilled. 
Given  only  fine  weather  and  an  attractive  debate,  and  the  Peeresses' 
gallery  will  be  a  parterre  of  elaborate  and  multicolored  toilettes, 
rivaling  in  their  resplendent  variety  the  innumerable  tints  which 
the  decorative  taste  of  Barry  has  impressed  upon  the  architecture 
of  the  fabric. 

It  is  not  only  in  these  respects — sumptuous  ornamentation,  the 
presence  of  ladies,  full  in  the  sight  of  assembled  legislators — that  the 
interior  of  the  House  of  Lords  presents  such  a  contrast  to  the  House 
of  Commons.  There  is  an  air  of  agreeable  abandon  in  the  mien 
and  behavior  of  their  lordships.     The  countenances  of  the  mem- 


! 


THE    HOUSE    OF  LORDS.  401 

bers  of  the  House  of  Commons  have  for  the  most  pari,  a  1  ok  of 
anxiety  or  preoccupation.  They  enter  their  chamber  like  men  op- 
pressed with  the  consciousness  of  responsibility,  burdened  by  a 
despotism  of  immutable  laws  and  rigid  etiquette.  There  is  nothing 
of  the  sort  in  the  House  of  Lords — no  painful  evidence  of  the  thrall- 
dom  of  ceremonial  rules  or  customs,  or  of  the  ruthless  sacrifice  of 
pleasure  to  duty.  The  whole  atmosphere  is  redolent  of  well-bred 
nonchalance  and  aristocratic  repose.  For  instance,  there  is  in  theory 
a  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Lords,  called  though  he  always  is  the  ( !han- 
cellor,  just  as  there  is  a  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons;  but  the 
functions  of  the  two  are  separated  by  a  gulf  which  is  conclusive  as 
to  the  difference  of  their  relative  positions,  and  also  as  to  the  spirit 
in  which  the  business  of  the  two  Houses  is  conducted.  The  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Commons  is  something  more  than  primus  inter  pare*. 
For  the  time  being  he  is  regarded  as  of  a  nature  different  from,  and 
superior  to  the  honorable  gentlemen  by  whom  he  is  surrounded. 
Though  there  is  nothing  which  the  House  of  Commons  likes  better 
than  a  personal  encounter,  or  a  vituperative  duel  between  any  two 
members,  there  is  nothing  approaching  to  disrespect  to  the  gentle- 
man who  is  the  first  commoner  in  England — the  custodian  and  em- 
bodiment of  its  privileges — that  it  will  tolerate.  The  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons  is,  in  fact,  the  Commissioner-in-Chief  of  the 
privileges  and  prerogatives  of  the  House  of  Commons — whom  the 
House  has  agreed  to  make  the  depositary  of  its  ceremonial  interests. 
To  the  Lord  Chancellor  no  such  trust  has  been  delivered,  the  Peers 
are  a  self-governed  body,  the  preservers  of  their  own  "  order,"'  and 
the  protectors  of  their  own  privileges.  Though  the  keeper  of  the 
Queen's  conscience  may  sit  enthroned  in  majesty  on  the  woolsack, 
he  is  not  fenced  round  by  a  divinity  sufficient  to  deter  noble  lords 
from  lounging  indolently  at  half-length  upon  its  well-padded  sides. 
Save  for  the  dignity  of  his  garb  the  Chancellor  might  be  nothing 
'more  than  the  usher  of  the  court;  unlike  the  Speaker  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  his  lordship  does  not  decide  who  shall  have  priority. 
When  more  than  one  peer  rises,  their  lordships  keep  order  for  them- 
selves; the  Chancellor  has  not  even  a  casting-vote  when  the  numbers 
in  a  division  are  equal,  and  his  only  strictly  presidential  duty  is  to 
put  the  question,  and  read  the  titles  of  measures.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  is  the  direct  representative  of  royalty  on  all  occasions  when 
the  Sovereign  communicates  with  Parliament,  and  he  is  the  repre- 
sentative official  mouth-piece  of  the  House  of  Peers  when  they  hoi  1 
intercourse  with  public  bodies,  or  individuals  outside.  It  is  rare  to 
find  more  than  a  third  of  the  sittings  of  the  House  of  Lords  occu- 


f 


402  ENGLAND. 

pied.  There  is  no  need  for  members,  as  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
to  come  down  a  couple  of  hours  before  the  business  of  the  day 
begins,  and  bespeak  a  place  for  themselves  by  affixing  a  card. 

All  is  calm;  there  is  no  haste,  no  rude  competition,  no  uncere- 
monious jostling.  It  is  five  minutes  past  five,  and  Lord  Cairns  has 
taken  his  seat  upon  the  woolsack.  The  proceedings  of  their  lord- 
ships begin  with  what,  to  the  spectator  from  the  gallery,  is  merely 
a  dumb  show.  The  Chancellor  rises,  repeats  a  cabalistic  formula, 
which  is  in  effect  the  titles  of  the  measures  that  are  not  opposed — 
private  Bills,  and  so  forth — and  after  having  murmured,  in  tones  au- 
dible to  few  but  himself,  some  twenty  times,  that  the  "  contents  have 
it,"  sits  down,  and  waits  for  his  colleagues  on  the  ministerial  bench, 
or  his  noble  opponents  on  the  Opposition  bench,  to  commence. 
Independently  of  the  condition  of  the  galleries,  and  the  space  be- 
fore the  throne  and  in  front  of  the  bar,  behind  the  iron  benches  at 
the  opposite  end  of  the  House,  there  are  other  signs  which  will  ac- 
quaint the  visitor  whether  a  keen  debate  or  important  division 
is  expected.  If  it  is  he  will  notice  that  the  parliamentary  clerk, 
who  stands  a  little  in  front,  and  to  the  right  of  the  entrance  on  the 
left  side  of  the  throne,  is  particularly  busy  in  writing  down  on  a  tab- 
let which  he  carries  in  his  hands  the  name  of  every  peer  whom  he 
can  see.  He  will  also  notice  that  a  gentleman  of  pleasant  ajypear- 
ance  and  polished  address  is  particularly  active  in  saluting  noble 
lords  as  they  come  into  the  chamber,  or  after  they  have  taken  their 
seats.  Presently  the  same  gentleman  hurriedly  commits  a  number 
of  names  to  paper,  under  the  heading  C.  and  N.  C,  not  before  he 
has  first  conferred  with  the  above-named  parliamentary  clerk  for 
the  purpose  of  verifying  his  catalogue,  standing  a  little  aloof,  smooth- 
ing with  his  hand,  at  intervals  during  the  process,  his  flowing  beard. 
At  last  his  task  is  over.  He  completes  his  calculation  with  a  smile  of 
satisfaction,  and  walks  leisurely  up  to  the  Government  leader  in  the 
House  of  Lords  to  whisper  a  few  words  in  his  ear.  The  Govern- 
ment leader  is  for  the  time  the  President  of  the  Council,  and  his 
friend  and  coUeague  is  the  saost  popular  and  assiduous  ministerial 
"whip"  ever  known  in  then  lordships'  House.  Meanwhile  minis- 
ters are  answering  the  few  questions  to  which  in  the  House  of  Lords 
they  are  ever  called  upon  to  respond.  The  curious  feature  in  the 
collective  hfe  of  the  House  of  Lords  at  the  present  moment  is  that 
no  one  seems  to  care  for  what  his  neighbor  is  doing  or  saving.  The 
Chancellor  is  writing  a  note  on  his  knee.  The  Primate  is  talking  to 
an  archdeacon  whom  he  has  introduced  into  the  House  on  the  left 
of  the  Episcopal  Bench.     The  Lord  President  of  the  Council  is 


THE    HOUSE    OF   LORDS.  403 

strolling  into  the  lobby.  The  leader  of  the  Opposition  is  (batting  to 
a  noble  duke  who  sits  immediately  behind  him.  But  after  a  while 
the  preliminaries  come  to  an  end,  and  then,  if  there  is  to  be  a  real 
debate,  and  not  merely  a  discursive  conversation,  the  debate  begins. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  debate  itself  will  be  wanting 
either  in  interest  or  excitement.  The  speeches,  whatever  the  Bubject 
may  be,  which  are  most  successful,  and  which  elicit  the  greatest 
manifestations  of  applause,  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  House  of 
Commons'  speeches,  yet  the  interest  attaching  to  the  discussion  is 
of  a  kind  entirely  different  from  that  attaching  to  debates  in  the 
Lower  Chamber  of  the  legislature.  There  is  no  widely  diffused 
sense  of  the  collective  wisdom  of  the  assemblage;  the  object  is  not 
to  know7  what  the  House  wdll  say,  but  what  particular  members  of 
the  House  will  say.  The  attraction  is  found  rather  in  the  individuals 
than  in  the  institution,  whereas  it  is  just  the  reverse  of  this  which 
holds  true  in  the  case  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  may,  indeed, 
ahnost  be  said  that  the  fame  of  a  few  illustrious  peers  eclipses  the 
prestige  of  the  assembly  in  which  they  sit,  and  though  the  House  of 
Peers  owTes  much  of  its  power  and  influence  to  the  fact  that  its  mem- 
bers have  then*  seats  there  by  right  of  birth,  it  is  not,  and  it  never 
has  been,  a  house  where  the  most  influential  members  are  the  great- 
est noblemen.  Here  there  is  at  work,  as  elsewhere  in  our  constitu- 
tion, that  subtly  democratizing  tendency  which  is  yet  such  a  guar- 
antee of  the  stability  of  our  aristocratic  system.  The  vote  and  speech 
of  the  biggest  duke  do  not,  because  of  the  accident  of  the  ducal  dig- 
nity, carry  more  weight  than  that  of  the  viscount  or  baron.  It  is 
true  that,  as  has  been  already  said,  there  is  in  the  House  of  Lords 
a  sort  of  imperium  in  imperio,  and  that  the  rank  and  file  of  the  mem- 
bers do  not  as  a  rule  actively  take  part  in  the  proceedings.  But 
when  once  the  critic  comes  to  the  charmed  circle  he  will  find  that  its 
most  important  members  are  those  of  the  highest  political  aptitude. 

All  this  tune  the  reader  has  been  kept  waiting  on  the  threshold 
of  the  actual  discussion.  Under  the  strangers'  gallery,  immediately 
opposite  the  semicircular  space  where  the  throne  is,  and  which  is 
reserved  for  Privy  Councilors  and  the  sons  of  peers,  is  an  oblong 
inclosure,  also  railed  oil',  which  is  known  as  the  bar.  Hither  press 
a  mixed  throng  of  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  and  visitors 
from  outside,  for  an  important  discussion  is  expected,  and  it  may 
even  be  that  their  lordships  will  stoop  to  personalities.  The  de- 
bate begins  with  dignity,  and,  save  for  the  voice  of  the  speaker, 
with  silence.  There  are  few  cries  of  "  hear,  hear,"  there  are  fewer 
cheers.     The  orator  may  be  the  Prime  Minister  himself,  but  his  au- 


404  ENGLAND. 

dience  succeed  in  presenting  an  appearance  of  comparative  indiffer- 
ence. One  noble  lord  transacts  as  much  as  he  can  of  his  private 
and  official  correspondence,  leaning  forward  to  the  table  ever  and 
anon  to  dip  his  pen  in  the  ink;  another  beats  time  to  an  imaginary 
melody  with  his  fingers  on  his  knees;  a  third  lapses  into  seeming 
somnolence;  a  fourth,  and  he,  perhaps,  the  most  keenly  interested 
of  all,  folds  his  arms  and  sits  unmoved  and  immovable,  to  all  out- 
ward seeming,  as  granite.  This  state  of  things  lasts  for  some  little 
time,  until,  indeed,  either  the  present  or  some  subsequent  speaker 
touches  upon  a  theme  which  at  once  lets  loose  the  bitter  waters  of 
party  or  personal  strife.  Some  inrputation  has  been  made,  and  an 
explanation  is  demanded;  it  is  given,  it  is  not  satisfactory,  and  thus 
the  wrangle  continues.  But  these  effervescences  are  of  very  excep- 
tional occurrence,  and,  indeed,  it  is  rare  when  any  debate  in  the 
Lords  takes  place  which  is  not  concluded  before  the  dinner-hour. 
More  than  one  proposal  has  recently  been  made  that  the  House  of 
Lords  should  meet  earlier  and  rise  later,  and  there  are  signs  of  a 
growing  appetite  for  work  at  the  present  time  among  the  Peers. 
Momentous  questions  of  foreign  policy  will  perhaps  never  be  the 
subject  of  general  debate,  but  it  is  pointed  out  that  there  are  a  host 
of  matters  connected  with  army  reform,  local  government,  railway 
business,  and  a  variety  of  matters  connected  with  domestic  adminis- 
tration on  which  many  noblemen  who  are  now  systematically  silent 
might  make  themselves  periodically  heard,  and  might,  by  speaking 
on  these  matters,  acquire  a  valuable  parliamentary  training.  As 
matters  are,  it  is  part  of  the  duty  of  lords  in  waiting  to  do  regular 
work  in  a  Government  office  during  the  tenure  of  their  posts,  and 
I  consequently  these  officials  are  no  longer  the  mere  ornaments  of  a 
Court  that  they  once  Avere.  Why,  it  has  been  asked,  should  not  the 
number  of  these  aj)pointments  with  their  corresponding  obligations 
be  increased,  and  if  that  step  prove  impracticable,  why  should  not 
some  sort  of  occupation  be  found?  It  must,  however,  be  remem- 
bered that  their  lordships  accomjnish  a  great  deal  more  work  now 
than  meets  the  public  eye.  The  House  of  Lords,  too,  has,  like  the 
House  of  Commons,  its  own  elaborate  system  of  private  Bill  legisla- 
tion, and  attendance  at  select  committees  is  quite  as  much  the  duty 
of  the  hereditary  as  of  the  elective  legislator.  Whenever  any  of  the 
proposals  which  have  been  made  above  are  suggested,  the  answer  is 
that  there  is  already  experienced  a  great  difficulty  in  insuring  an 
adequate  attendance  of  members  on  these  select  committees.  The 
powers  which  may  be  exercised  by  the  Chairman  of  Committees  in 
the  House  of  Lords  are  so  extensive  and  even  absolute  that  no  com- 


THE    HOUSE    OF  LORDS.  405 

panson  in  this  respect  between  the  two  assemblies  is  possible.  The 
present  holder  of  the  office  in  the  Peers — the  Earl  of  Redesdale — 
may  be  also  described  as  a  sort  of  constitution  in  himself.  Th 
is  a  more  specific  difference  between  Ihe  procedure  of  the  select 
committees  of  the  House  of  Commons  and  select  committees  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  that  in  the  former  case,  whereas  the  public  are, 
as  a  rule,  admitted,  from  the  latter  they  are,  with  few  exceptions,' 
excluded. 

Between  the  rides  and  the  routine  of  the  two  Chambers  of  tho 
legislature  there  is  a  general  resemblance.  The  quorum  of  the 
i  Upper  House  is  not  forty,  but  three.  At  the  table  of  the  House  are 
seated  the  three  clerks,  as  in  the  case  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
who  take  down  minutes  of  the  proceedings  and  receive  all  notices 
of  motion.  Much  greater  laxity  prevails  as  to  the  rules  regulating 
the  asking  of  questions  in  the  Lords  than  in  the  Commons.  Ques- 
tions are  very  often  asked  by  members  of  the  Opposition  of  the 
Government,  or  by  one  peer  of  another,  with  a  notice  that  would  be 
deemed  inadequate  in  the  Commons,  or,  j)Ossibly,  without  any  notice 
at  all.  Nor,  although  it  is  prohibited  to  mention  by  name  in  the 
course  of  a  debate  any  peer,  has  that  rule  been  as  rigidly  adhered 
to  in  the  Peers  during  the  last  few  years  as  in  the  Commons.  Here, 
as  in  the  Commons,  all  proposals  submitted  to  the  House  resolve 
themselves  into  questions  asked  of  the  Speaker,  which  have  to 
be  answered  in  the  negative  or  affirmative.  But  in  the  House  of 
Lords  the  "ayes"  are  spoken  of  as  the  "contents,"  and  the  "noes" 
as  the  "non-contents."  The  maimer  of  taking  a  division  resembles, 
since  effect  was  given  to  certain  changes  made  on  the  motion  of  the 
late  Lord  Stanhope,  that  adopted  in  the  Commons.  The  lobbies  on 
the  right  and  left  of  the  House,  after  having  been  cleared  of  stran- 
gers, are  guarded  with  locked  doors;  two  tellers  are  appointed  for 
,'  each  party;  the  contents  going  into  the  right  lobby  and  the  non- 
contents  into  the  left,  and  as  they  return  into  the  House  the  voles 
are  counted  and  are  announced  to  the  Lord  Chancellor  or  to  the 
Speaker  of  the  House,  who  is,  of  course,  the  chairman,  if  the  divi- 
sion has  taken  place  in  committee. 

In  this  general  review  of  the  House  of  Lords,  as  it  at  present 
exists,  two  or  three  facts  prominently  stand  forth.  In  the  first  pla 
while  the  House  of  Lords  is  an  assembly  representative  of  great 
interests,  high  intellectual  excellence,  success  and  prosperity,  and 
all  the  qualities  which  command  success  and  prosperity,  it  retains 
its  aristocratic  prestige  unimpaired.  Secondly,  valuable  as  its  dis- 
cussions always  are  on  critical  and  complicated  themes  of  imperial 


406  ENGLAND. 

policy,  mature  and  finished  as  is  the  quality  of  its  statesmanship, 
there  is  a  definite  promise  of  more  legislative  activity  and  influence 
among  its  rising  members.  Eence  in  a  democratic  age,  it  is  gain- 
ing rather  than  losing  power,  and,  although  the  traditions  and  habits 
of  aristocratic  dependence  have  disappeared,  it  is  felt  that  an  aristo- 
cratic hereditary  legislature,  which  does  its  work  well,  stands  on 
unassailable  ground.  The  very  fact  that  the  functions  of  the  House 
of  Lords  are  critical  rather  than  constructive,  while  it  gives  their 
lordships  less  opportunity  of  national  display,  increases  their  capa- 
cities for  national  usefulness.  It  is  also  to  the  House  of  Lords, 
rather  than  to  the  House  of  Commons,  that  we  must  look  to  pre- 
serve the  standard  of  English  statesmanship  and  English  parliament- 
ary speaking.  Incompetent  speakers  there  doubtless  are  among  the 
peers,  but  they  perhaps  break  silence  less  often  than  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  As  for  the  best  of  the  regular  speakers,  their  utter- 
ances are  seldom  without  two  merits — lucidity  and  compression.  As 
a  corrective  to  the  diffuseness  and  obscurity  which  are  the  bane  of 
the  House  of  Commons'  rhetoricians,  the  speeches  in  the  House  of 
Lords  would  alone  be  of  extreme  value. 

A  few  words  remain  to  be  said  on  the  relation  in  which  the 
House  of  Lords  stands  to  the  two  great  parties  in  the  State. 
Whereas  there  are  few  respects  in  which  the  stanch  Liberal  would 
advocate  reform  in  our  second  Chamber,  the  Conservative  would 
not  deny  that  then  lordships'  House  might  submit  to  several  modi- 
fications with  advantage.  Thus  there  are  many  Conservatives  in 
favor  of  the  creation  of  life-peers;  but,  with  two  exceptions,  it  is 
exceedingly  doubtfrd  how  far  the  representative  Liberal  would  be 
in  favor  01  any  reform  at  all  in  then  lordships'  body.  These  ex- 
ceptions are  the  disqualification  of  bishops  to  sit  in  the  Peers,  and 
the  introduction  of  the  ilinority  Yote  into  the  election  of  Scotch 
and  Irish  representative  peers;  the  former  would  be  hailed  by  Lib- 
eralism as  a  step  towards,  and  as  involving  the  principle  of,  the  dis- 
establishment of  the  English  Church;  the  second,  as  a  guarantee 
that  the  representative  lords  of  Leland  and  Scotland  woidd  be,  in 
some  cases,  Liberals.  For  the  rest,  the  Liberal  politician  would 
oppose  reform  of  the  House  of  Lords  for  the  same  reasons  that  the 
Conservative  would  advocate  it;  such  a  measure,  the  former  would 
contend,  must  strengthen  and  not  weaken  the  influence  of  a  second 
Chamber,  whereas  a  certain  phase  of  Liberalism  is  pretty  generally 
opposed  to  the  existence  of  any  second  Chamber  at  all.  The  House  of 
Lords,  argues  the  Liberal,  is  quite  strong  enough  as  matters  are,  and 
exercises  a  sufficiently  sinister  force  upon  the  course  of  legislation 


THE    HOUSE    OF  LORDS.  407 

That  the  influence  of  the  House  of  Lords  upon  the  deliberations! 
and  the  Acts  of  Parliament  is,  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  a  very  real  thing,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  But  it  is  nol  ex- 
ercised in  the  old  way,  nor  is  ii  exercised  in  the  manner  which  some 

persons  may  alone  imagine  to  be  possible.  Such  collisions  between 
the  two  Houses  as  those  which  took  place  over  the  Reform  Hill  in 
1832,  or  in  the  matter  of  the  repeal  of  the  paper  duty,  arc  no, 
to  come  again.  So  far  as  the  course  of  legislation  is  concern  d, 
once  it  has  commenced,  the  authority  of  the  Peers  is  rather  seen,  as 
lias  been  said,  in  the  revision  of  the  edicts  of  the  Commons  than  in 
the  thwarting  of  them.  But  there  is  a  great  deal  of  authority  exer- 
cised which  does  not  come  before  the  public-  at  all.  The  real  influ- 
ence of  their  lordships  is  invisible  rather  than  visible.  They  prevent 
certain  measures  being  introduced  quite  as  much  as  they  control 
them  when  introduced.  "Whatever  may  be  the  case  with  the  coun- 
try, the  Conservative  party  are  always  sure  to  have  an  overwhelming 
majority  amongst  the  Peers.  Hence,  it  is  always  theoretically  possi- 
ble for  the  Upper  House  to  reject  any  measure  passed  by  the  Lower 
House  which  may  offend  the  prejudices  of  Conservatism.  A  Liberal 
Cabinet,  we  may  suppose,  meditates  the  introduction  of  a  Bill  which 
is  considered  fatally  to  affect  some  great  Conservative  interest;  their 
lordships  get  wind  of  the  proposal,  and  politely,  but  firmly,  hint 
that  it  will  not  do.  What  is,  or,  at  least,  what  may  be  the  conse- 
quence? The  measure  is  either  shelved  or  else  watered  down  to 
such  an  extent  that  its  drastic  powers  disappear. 

Further,  it  must  always  be  remembered  that  the  solid  and  sub- 
stantial interests  of  a  majority  of  the  Whig  aristocracy  are,  in  their 
essence,  identical  with  those  of  the  Tory  peers.  Our  British  nobl. 
exists  upon  a  basis  of  landed  property.  Nothing  which  does  not 
strike  at  these  exclusive  territorial  privileges  can  seriously  impair 
the  position  of  the  Conservative  peer;  nothing  which  does  so  strike 
at  them  can  be  acceptable  to  the  Whigs.  Again,  there  are  certain 
constitutional  rights,  the  collective  possession  of  the  House  of  Lords, 
in  whose  preservation  Whigs  and  Tories  are  equally  interested.  A 
few  years  ago,  when  it  was  proposed  to  rob  their  lordships  of  their 
judicial  powers,  a  great  Tory  nobleman,  who  was  in  the  habit  of 
holding  weekly  a  lodge  at  his  private  house — the  gentlemen  attend- 
ing which  made  it  their  special  business  t<>  watch  current  or  expect- 
ed legislation  in  the  interests  of  Conservatism  rallied  round  him 
at  the  critical  moment  the  support  not  only  of  the  peers  of  his  own 
party,  but  of  many  who  on  ordinary  occasions  were  opposed  to  him. 
So  strong  was  this  combination  of  noblemen,  taking  their  stand  upon 


498  ENGLAND. 

the  common  ground  of  the  privileges  of  nobility,  that  the  Lord 
Chancellor  of  the  day  was  compelled  to  surrender  those  clauses  of 
a  measure  which  would  have  transferred  the  judicial  attributes  of 
their  lordships  to  u  committee. 

The  Lords  and  Commons  may  still  look  at  matters  from  a  differ- 
ent point  of  view,  but  they  do  not  parade  their  quarrels  as  they 
formerly  did.  Their  disputes  have  ceased  to  take  place  in  public, 
and  all  that  the  public  knows  of  the  dispute  is  the  result  born  of 
diplomatic  negotiation  and  compromise.  Now,  compromise  beyond 
a  certain  point  is  the  one  thing  which  the  thorough-going  Liberal 
disapproves,  and  hence  his  natural  dislike  of  a  House  of  Lords,  or 
of  any  second  Chamber  at  all.  In  the  natural  antagonism,  some- 
times suppressed,  at  others  openly  asserted,  between  the  principles 
of  Liberalism  and  the  House  of  Lords,  niay  be  seen  the  reason 
why  all  Liberal  administrations  are  likely  to  be  less  long-lived  than 
Conservative.  Between  a  Conservative  Government  and  a  House 
of  Lords  there  is  an  open  and  durable  alliance ;  between  a  Liberal 
administration  and  a  House  of  Lords  there  is  constantly  present  the 
probability  of  feud.  Sooner  or  later  the  elements  of  strife  assert 
themselves,  the  water  begins  to  be  troublesome,  and  the  foundering 
of  the  ship  is  imminent.  In  18G9  the  Liberal  majority  in  the  House 
of  Commons  could  have  carried  absolute  fixity  of  tenure  in  the  Lish 
Land  Act,  but  it  was  known  that  the  House  of  Lords,  as  an  assem- 
blage of  landowners,  would  not  submit  to  such  a  clause,  and  it  was 
consequently  deemed  impracticable  to  pursue  the  idea. 

So  far  as  the  political  and  constitutional  future  of  England  is 
concerned,  there  are  two  prophecies  which  may  be  made  without 
incurring  the  charge  of  rashness  proverbially  attendant  on  predic- 
tion. It  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  when  household  suffrage  is 
given,  as  sooner  or  later  it  is  sure  to  be,  to  country  voters,  the  entire 
as£>ect  of  party  politics  will  be  materially  altered.  For  the  first  time 
in  the  parliamentary  history  of  England  it  is  possible  that  even  in 
the  representation  of  counties — -those  strongholds  of  Toryism — the 
Liberals  would  command  an  absolute  majority.  This  majority  would 
enable  Liberal  statesmanship  to  proceed  in  a  more  daring  spirit,  and 
to  attempt  to  realize  bolder  and  more  sweeping  conceptions  than  it 
has  yet  ventured  to  do.  "What  actual  use  would  be  made  of  this 
opportunity,  what  practical  result  the  possibility  would  yield,  must 
be  matter  of  opinion.  There  are  those  who  hold  that  the  latent 
revolutionary  instincts  of  the  English  people  would  display  them- 
selves without  disguise,  and  that  we  should  at  once  enter  upon  a 
new  order  of  subversive  legislative  enterprise.     On  the  other  hand, 


THE    HOUSE    OF  LORDS.  409 

there  will  be  those  who,  giving  their  due  weight  to  the  facta  and 
illustrations  which  have  been  produced  elsewhere  in  this  work, 
and  recollecting  that  the  political  life  of  Englishmen  is  not  dis- 
tinct from  their  social  life;  that  the  influences  which  leaven  the 
masses  are  not  democratic  but  aristocratic,  or  as  aristocratic  as 
the  plutocratic  agencies  at  work  will  allow;  that  there  is  no  im- 
passable gulf  fixed  between  one  class  and  another,  and  that  admi- 
ration for  rank  almost  seems  innate  in  the  English  breast — there 
are  those  Avho  bearing  these  circumstances  in  mind,  will  hold  that 
household  suffrage  in  counties  will  bring  us  no  nearer  to  revolution 
than  did  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832,  which,  it  was  ominously  predicted 
at  the  time,  by  alarmist  prophets  would  be  quickly  followed  by  a 
reign  of  terror. 

These  are  questions  which  the  reader  must  decide  for  himself. 
One  other  point  there  is  on  which  a  definite  opinion  may  be  ex- 
pressed. It  is  conceivable  that  in  years  to  come  events  may  occur 
tending  in  the  direction  of  a  very  grave  strife  between  the  privileged 
classes  and  the  multitude  on  property  in  land.  But  imagine  the 
most  disastrous  contingency  that  can  possibly  be  realized,  a  strife 
that  should  practically  culminate  in  civil  war.  How  would  this  af- 
fect the  tenure  of  the  Crown?  The  Crown  would  certainly  have 
nothing  to  gain  by  flinging  its  influence  into  the  scale  of  the  aris- 
tocracy, and  it  wTould  certainly  have  much  to  lose  if  the  aristocracy 
were  beaten.  Probably  there  is  no  practical  politician  living  who 
holds  that  any  political  conjuncture  at  home  is  likely  to  present  itself 
which  can  seriously  jeopardize  the  existence  of  the  monarchy.  M  a 
Nero  or  Caligula  were  to  come  to  the  throne,  possibly  there  would 
be  more  than  danger;  there  might  be  certainty  of  overthrow.  But 
these  are  not  the  monsters  which  the  atmosphere  of  royalty  in  the 
nineteenth  century  develops.  Follies  and  extravagances  we  indeed 
may  have,  and  it  is  perhaps  more  reasonable  to  anticipate  the  theat- 
rical wantonness  of  a  Louis  of  Bavaria  than  the  portentous  eccen- 
tricities of  the  most  debased  of  the  Caesars,  or  even  the  attempted 
personal  government  of  the  last  of  the  Hanoverian  kings.  It  is  not 
jjossible  to  conceive  of  the  English  monarchy  as  perishing  except 
amid  a  universal  cataclysm.*  A  colossal  European  war,  followed  by 
grinding  taxation,  the  total  loss  of  our  carrying  trade  at  the  hands 

*  A  distingiiished  statesman  writes  to  me  as  follows  on  the  opinion  expressed 
in  the  text:— "This,  I  admit,  a  fair  and  reasonable  view;  but  I  can  easily  con- 
ceive another  alternative,  and  one  quite  as  probable.  The  ordinary  progress  of 
modern  democracy  might  silently  and  gradually  absorb  the  monarchy  into  a 
presidency  without  cataclysm  or  even  struggle." 


410  ENGLAND. 

of  privateers  scouring  the  high  seas,  the  consequent  deprivation  of 
industry  and  livelihood  to  thousands  of  our  population  which  this 
loss  would  imply,  the  blocking  up  of  the  channels  of  emigration,  at- 
tended perhaps  by  the  secession  or  the  conquest  of  some  of  our 
most  important  colonies,  a  population  overgrown,  starving  and  des- 
perate, pent  up  within  the  narrow  limits  of  the  United  Kingdom — 
this  is  a  combination  of  calamities  which  might  indeed  provoke  a 
movement  fatal  to  the  English  monarchy;  but  before  that  went  every 
thing  else  would  have  gone.  The  Crown  would  not  perish  singly, 
and  on  the  day  that  it  ceased  to  exist  as  an  institution  the  structure 
of  English  society  would  be  in  danger  of  falling  to  pieces.  It  is  only 
upon  the  fulfillment  of  some  such  hypothesis  as  this,  and  not  as  a 
consequence  of  any  national  fit  of  political  discontent,  however  deep 
or  long,  that  the  destruction  of  the  monarchy  can  present  itself  as  a 
contingency  that  need  be  reckoned  with. 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

THE    LAW    COURTS. 

The  Policeman — Police  Courts — Committal— Quarter  Sessions — Grand  Jury — ■ 
Trial  of  Indictment — Court  of  Crown  Cases — High  Court — Writ— Sheriff's 
Court — Pleadings — Law  and  Equity — Judges'  Chambers — Interrogatories — 
Trial  of  Action — Divisional  Court — Court  of  Appeal — Supreme  Court— House 
of  Lords — County  Courts — Judgment  Summonses — Appeal  from  County 
Courts — Courts  Spiritual — The  Judicial  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council. 

TO  a  vast  number  of  law-obeying  and  law-protected  Englishmen 
and  women  the  only  visible  embodiment  of  the  law  under 
1  which  they  live  is  the  police  constable.  He  is  the  outermost  wheel 
in  the  great  and  complicated  mechanism  which  is  charged  with  the 
duty  of  maintaining  the  broad  outline  of  social  relations.  Fortunate- 
ly, he  is  himself  a  very  simple  legal  unit,  being  little  more  than  one 
of  the  people  put  into  a  blue  uniform,  his  figure  improved  by  drill, 
and  his  intelligence  sharpened  by  experience  in  applying  mi  emer- 
gencies a  few  plain  rules.  In  England  he  is  not,  as  in  other  coun- 
tries, much  under  the  control  of  the  central  Government,  being  ap- 
pointed and  regulated  by  county  justices,  or  the  local  authority  of 
a  borough.  He  is,  in  fact,  the  servant  of  the  people  and  of  the  law. 
Stationed  in  a  country  village,  he  is  looked  up  to  as  an  oracle,  and 
in  the  crowded  courts  and  alleys  of  a  town,  where  from  want  of  el- 
bow-room much  friction  of  the  social  machine  occurs,  he  is  often  the 
needful  arbitrator  and  peacemaker.  In  this  character  he  may  be 
considered  a  legal  tribunal  of  the  very  first  instance. 

Apart  from  the  visible  presence  of  the  police  constable,  the  law 
is  hardly  realized  until  it  is  broken.  Like  the  air,  it  is  always  above 
and  around  us,  but  is  not  fully  valued  until  withdrawn  ( 'antabit 
mus  coram  latrone  viator;  but  eveiy  one  who  carries  about  him 
what  is  worth  stealing  is  constantly  in  need  of  the  protection  of  the 
law.  Viator  may  pass  half  a  life-time  without  knowing  any  thing  of 
the  actual  working  of  his  omnipresent  protector,  yet  one  day  he 
may  be  looking  into  a  shop-window  and  feel  a  tug  at  his  watch. 


412  ENGLAND. 

The  instinct  of  self-protection  makes  him  seize  the  man  standing 
near,  who,  he  believes,  has  it.  Then  he  remembers  the  police  con- 
stable, and  at  once  the  law  becomes  to  him  a  real  existence.  A  po- 
liceman arrives,  and  the  first  thing  he  does  after  hearing  what  has 
happened  is  to  ask,  "  Do  you  give  him  in  charge  ?  "  Viator  thinks 
he  cannot  be  mistaken;  there  was  only  one  other  person  before  the 
shop-window  besides  himself  and  the  man  in  question,  and  that  per- 
son has  disappeared.  On  the  other  hand,  the  captive  is  loud  in  his 
protestations.  He  is  an  honest  man,  one  Latro,  a  French-polisher, 
who  lives  in  Furcifer  Street.  He  is  as  innocent  as  the  babe  unborn. 
Let  them  search  him,  and  if  he  has  the  gentleman's  watch,  he  will 
say  no  more.  This  flood  of  eloquence  a  little  puzzles  Viator,  but  it 
seems  to  have  little  effect  on  the  constable,  and  Latro  is  given  in 
charge.  The  law  has  now  been  fairly  set  in  motion,  and  we  shall 
see  what  happens  next. 

The  constable  and  Latro  start  together  to  the  police-station,  and 
Viator  is  desired  to  follow.  Here  they  find  an  inspector  of  police, 
who  enters  the  charge  in  the  station  records.  Latro  is  searched 
and  no  watch  is  found  on  him,  but  meanwhile  a  constable  has  gone 
round  to  Furcifer  Street,  and  no  Latro  is  known  at  the  address,  nor 
any  French-polisher.  Prosecutor,  constable,  and  prisoner  there- 
upon jn'oceed  to  the  police  court,  and  we  now  first  find  ourselves 
in  a  court  of  law.  The  magistrate  is  seated,  without  official  dress, 
at  a  desk  placed  in  front  of  a  small  library  of  law  books.  He  is  a 
lawyer,  of  the  class  called  stipendiary  magistrates,  who,  in  places 
wbere  the  magisterial  work  is  arduous,  are  commonly  substituted 
for  the  Petty  Sessions,  that  is  to  say,  two  or  more  country  gentle- 
men, or  it  may  be  aldermen,  who,  without  salary,  exercise  the  same 
jurisdiction  as  the  stipendiary  in  districts  where  the  business  is 
lighter.  Opposite  to  the  magistrate,  and  at  the  end  of  a  table,  at 
which  there  are  seats  for  the  lawyers,  is  the  dock,  inclosed  with  an 
iron  rail;  and  at  the  other  end  of  the  table,  under  the  magistrate, 
sits  the  clerk  of  the  court,  whose  duty  it  is  to  take  notes  of  the  evi- 
dence. The  magistrate  is  just  finishing  his  list  of  "  night  charges," 
and  the  latest  claimants  for  justice  must  wait  their  turn.  Cases  of 
drunkenness  are  visited  with  a  fine  of  some  shillings,  or  in  the  al- 
ternative a  few  days'  imprisonment.  Then  there  are  cases  of  vio- 
lence. A  husband  has  been  beating  his  wife  and  the  wife,  having 
given  him  into  custody,  now  begs  earnestly  for  his  release.  In  an- 
other case  the  assault  is  very  grievous,  and  the  husband  has  drawn 
so  often  on  the  wife's  forbearance  that  the  fund  is  exhausted.  The 
magistrate  orders  a  separation,  under  a  statute  passed  in  the  year 


THE    LAW   COURTS.  413 

1878,  so  that  the  wife  is  acquitted  of  her  matrimonial  misadventure, 
although  to  allow  her  to  marry  again  is  beyond  magisterial  jurisdic- 
tion. After  these  charges  there  is  a  prisoner  who  lias  been  caught 
in  the  act  of  attempted  robbery  during  the  day.  His  offense,  being 
the  first,  is  sufficiently  punished  by  four  months'  imprisonment.  It 
was  but  an  hour  ago  that  the  law  was  broken,  and  its  vindication 
has  been  speedy.     At  length  Latro  is  put  into  the  dock,  and  is  for 

I  the  first  time  a  little  abashed  by  the  scrutinizing  glance  of  the  jailer 
in  court.  Viator  is  sworn  as  a  witness,  and  details  his  mishap.  The 
policeman  is  sworn  also,  and  proof  is  given  that  the  prisoner's  ad- 
dress was  false.  But  the  evidence,  although  suspicious,  is  not  suf- 
ficient, as  Viator  did  not  see  his  watch  taken,  and  no  watch  has  been 
found.    Then  the  magistrate  asks,  "Is  any  thing  known  of  the  man?  " 

.  and  the  jailer  replies  that  he  thinks  he  is  known;  whereupon  a  re- 
mand is  ordered,  and  Latro  is  locked  up. 

Interested  in  what  are  to  him  novel  proceedings,  Viator  remains 
a  short  time  in  court.  He  hears  an  affiliation  order  made  for  the 
payment  of  five  shillings  a  week  by  the  father  of  the  child ;  and  a 
summons  against  a  licensed  victualer  for  Sunday  trading  dismissed, 
on  the  ground  that  the  person  served  was  a  bona  fide  traveler,  and 
therefore  legitimately  thirst}*.  There  are  besides  cross-summonses 
with  most  conflicting  evidence  for  assaults  and  a  case  of  burglary 
depending  entirely  on  circumstantial  evidence  adjourned  from  a 
previous  sitting.  Finally  Viator  goes  away  leaving  the  magistrate 
painfully  unraveling  a  charge  of  commercial  fraud. 

A  clay  or  two  later  Viator  is  required  again  at  the  station  to  see 
whether  he  can  identify  the  man  who  ran  away  when  his  watch  was 
stolen,  as  the  police  think  they  have  found  him.  He  is  taken  into 
a  room  where  there  are  seven  or  eight  men,  and  among  them  he 
recognizes  the  eloper.  A  description  of  the  watch  had  been  inserted 
in  the  Police  Gazette,  and  information  had  been  obtained  that  the 
watch  was  offered  in  pawn  by  a  woman  who  turned  out  to  be  the 
wife  of  the  man  now  identified.  The  watch  was  found  in  his  house, 
and  both  he  and  the  man  already  in  custody  have  been  previously 
convicted  of  stealing.  The  evidence  is  now  complete,  and  when  all 
concerned  go  before  the  magistrate,  both  prisoners  are  committed 
to  take  their  trial  before  a  jury,  as  the  magistrate  has  no  power  1 1 1 

(  dispose  summarily  of  such  repeated  offenders.  The  offense  was  not 
committed  within  the  district  of  the  Central  Criminal  Court,  so  that 
the  prisoners  must  be  tried  either  at  the  Assizes  when  the  judge 
comes  round  on  circuit,  or  at  the  Quarter  Sessions,  which  have 
power  to  try  most   criminal   cases   except  burglary   and  murder. 


414  ENGLAND. 

The  sessions  take  place  first,  and  accordingly  the  prisoners  are  com- 
mitted for  trial  at  that  Court. 

On  the  Bench  of  the  Quarter  Sessions  we  find  a  county  magnate 
by  wav  of  Chairman,  with  another  magistrate  on  each  side  of  him. 
Neither  of  the  three  is  a  lawyer  or  has  had  any  legal  training,  but 
they  administer  justice  gratuitously,  with  the  assistance  of  the  Clerk 
of  the  Peace,  who  is  a  salaried  lawyer  occupying  no  mean  position 
in  the  county.  The  Quarter  Sessions  sat  yesterday  in  a  numerous 
body  to  administer  the  business  of  the  county  in  respect  of  bridges, 
police,  and  the  like,  and  to-day  they  meet  for  judicial  purposes. 
The  first  business  is  to  charge  the  Grand  Jury.  They  are  gentle- 
men of  the  county  and  respectable  yeomen,  although  of  a  lower 
social  rank  than  at  the  Assizes,  where  the  Grand  Jury  are  reinforced 
by  men  of  the  class  who  now  sit  on  the  Bench.  The  Grand  Jurors, 
some  twenty  in  all,  are  sworn,  standing  in  a  gallery  at  one  side  of 
the  Court,  and  the  Chairman  proceeds  to  charge  them  by  referring 
shortly  to  the  cases  in  the  calendar  of  criminals,  and  telling  them 
that  if  they  think  there  is  sufficient  evidence  to  make  it  proper  for 
the  case  to  be  tried  they  ought  to  find  a  true  bill.  The  Grand  Jury 
then  retire  to  their  room,  for  then-  sittings  are  held  in  private,  and 
they  are  bound  not  to  disclose  then-  deliberations.  In  due  course 
Viator  and  the  other  witnesses  in  his  case  are  summoned  into  the 
Grand  Jury  room,  and  tell  their  story  shortly  to  the  Grand  Jury. 
After  a  time  the  Grand  Jury  reappear  in  their  gallery,  the  foreman 
carrying  several  pieces  of  parchment  in  his  hand.  These  are  handed 
down  to  the  Clerk  of  the  Peace,  who  sits  under  the  Bench  for  the 
purpose  of  giving  the  magistrates  legal  advice.  The  Clerk  of  the 
Peace  looks  at  the  back  of  each  document  to  see  what  the  Grand 
Jurors  have  there  certified  under  the  hand  of  their  foreman.  "Gen- 
tlemen of  the  Grand  Jury,  you  find  a  true  bill  against  Latro  and 
another  for  larceny  from  the  person."  The  foreman  bows,  and  thus 
the  "bill,"  which  had  been  prepared  in  legal  form  for  the  Grand 
Jury's  authorization,  becomes  the  "  indictment,"  or  formal  charge 
upon  which  the  prisoners  will  be  tried. 

It  is  some  time  before  Viator's  case  comes  on  for  trial,  and  he 
wanders  into  the  second  court.  This  court  is  a  dujxlicate  of  the 
other,  but  as  it  has  no  Grand  Jury  to  charge  it  takes  in  hand  some 
of  the  civil  and  appellate  cases  which  come  before  the  Quarter  Ses- 
sions. Permission  is  given  to  one  applicant  to  keep  a  lunatic  asy- 
lum ;  to  another  to  open  a  slaughter-house ;  to  a  third  to  divert  a 
road  passing  over  his  property.  Then  a  licensing  appeal  is  heard. 
Mr.  Boniface,  through  his  counsel,  complains  that  the  magistrates 


THE   LAW   COURTS.  415 

who  sat  to  grant  licenses  have  improperly  declined  to  renew  his 
license.  His  house  has  been  in  existence  for  twenty  years,  and 
there  have  been  no  complaints.  On  the  oilier  hand,  a  rival  to  Boni- 
face, who  has  taken  up  the  case  against  him,  declares  thai  more 
licenses  are  by  no  means  required  in  his  neighborhood,  and  Boni- 
face has  opened  a  tap  at  the  side  of  his  house  in  a  fashionable  thor- 
oughfare which  is  an  annoyance  to  promenaders.  The  matter  <■ 
by  Boniface  promising  to  close  the  tap,  and  obtaining  liis  license. 
Next,  there  is  an  appeal  from  a  summary  decision  of  the  stipendiary 
whose  acquaintance  Ave  have  already  made,  convicting  the  appellant 
of  an  assault;  witnesses  are  called  and  the  case  is  tried  all  over 
again.  The  Quarter  Sessions  affirm  or  quash  the  conviction,  as 
justice,  in  their  opinion,  requires. 

But  Viator  is  called  away,  as  his  case  is  about  to  begin.  "  Latro, 
you  are  charged  with  stealing  a  watch  on  such  a  day  from  the  per- 
son of  Viator;  are  you  guilty  or  not  guilty?"  This  comes  froin  the 
Clerk  of  the  Peace,  and  Latro  replies  "Not  Guilty."  A  similar  cere- 
mony is  gone  through  with  the  other  prisoner.  They  have  in  legal 
phrase  "put  themselves  on  the  country,"  and  their  country  is  rap- 
idly represented,  subject  perhaps  to  the  winnowing  process  of  chal- 
lenging the  jurors,  by  twelve  men  in  the  jury-box,  mostly  farm,  rs 
and  tradesmen,  who  are  sworn,  "Well  and  truly  to  try  the  issue 
joined  between  our  Sovereign  Lady  the  Queen  and  the  prisoners  at 
the  bar,  and  a  true  verdict  give  according  to  the  evidence."  The 
counsel  for  the  prosecution  first  briefly  details  the  facts  of  the  case. 
He  is  a  young  barrister,  for  it  is  at  Quarter  Sessions  that  young 
barristers  are  trained  to  the  work  of  their  profession.  He  then  calls 
the  witnesses  and  elicits  the  facts  from  them  by  questions.  The 
prisoners  have  no  counsel  to  defend  them,  but  Latro  cross-examines 
the  witnesses  with  some  ingenuity.  His  companion  in  durance  is 
stolidly  silent  all  through.  The  prisoners  call  no  witnesses,  but  Lai  ro 
makes  a  voluble  appeal  to  the  jury,  disclaiming  anv  knowledge  of  the 
other  man,  and  protesting  that  they  cannot  convict  him  simply  be- 
cause he  happened  to  be  standing  by  when  the  gentleman  lost  his 
watch.  What  surprises  Viator  is  that  all  through  the  trial  not  a 
single  reference  is  made  to  the  previous  conviction  of  both  pris- 
oners, facts  in  his  opinion  most  significant.  But  the  law  is  of  opin- 
ion that  facts  like  these,  if  known  to  the  jury,  will  prejudice  the  fair 
trial  of  the  existing  charge,  and  it  is  not  until  the  jury  have  found  a 
verdict  of  "Guiltv"  that  the  prisoners  are  ashed  whether  they  have 
not  been  previously  convicted  of  stealing  a  pair  of  boots.  They 
both  plead  guilty  to  this  fact,  although  Latro,  amid  Laughter,  says 


41 G  ENGLAND. 

he  did  not  take  the  boots  all  the  same,  a:id  are  sentenced  to  penal 
servitude — which  has  been  defined  by  a  Chief  Justice  as  a  condition 
of  slavery — for  seven  years. 

M<  >st  criminal  trials  end  with  the  verdict  and  sentence,  and  in 
the  case  of  a  simple  crime  no  difficult  point  of  law  is  likely  to  aris9 
to  require  consideration  in  a  higher  court.  Still,  even  in  an  ordi- 
nary case  of  stealing  there  may  be  a  question  of  law,  such  as  whether 
an  admission  of  the  accused  tending  to  show  his  guilt  was  admis- 
sible in  evidence;  for  the  English  law  has  a  constitutional  horror  of 
proving  guilt  from  the  mouth  of  the  prisoner,  and  always  rejects  an 
admission  if  there  was  any  appearance  of  its  being  extorted  either 
by  fear  of  punishment  or  hope  of  escape.  If  the  judge  at  the  trial 
thinks  there  is  a  point  of  law  in  a  criminal  case,  he  states  the  facts 
in  writing  for  the  opinion  of  the  Court  for  the  Consideration  of 
Crown  Cases  Reserved,  where  it  is  argued  and  determined.  This 
court  is  as  numerous  in  its  composition  as  its  name  is  long,  being 
composed  of  all  the  three-and-twenty  judges  of  the  High  Court  of 
Justice.  Ordinarily  five  judges  only  sit,  but  in  the  celebrated  case 
of  the  Franconia,  the  German  vessel  which  ran  down  an  English 
ship  within  three  miles  of  our  shore,  fourteen  judges  sat  to  decide 
whether  the  captain,  who  was  a  German,  was  criminally  respon- 
sible in  the  English  courts.  Six  judges  thought  he  was,  and  seven 
thought  he  was  not,  while  the  fourteenth  died  between  the  argu- 
ment and  the  judgment,  thus  perhaps  saving  the  court  from  being 
equally  divided.  Quantity  rather  than  quality  is  not  a  satisfactory 
basis  for  a  Court  of  Appeal,  and  the  time  may  come  when  criminal 
appeals  will  be  taken  like  other  appeals  to  the  House  of  Lords.  To 
have  but  one  Court  of  Appeal  favors  the  expedition  which  is  essen- 
tial to  the  due  punishment  of  crime;  but  when  appeals  are  few,  to  take 
them  to  the  highest  source  of  law  is  not  likely  much  to  prejudice 
persons  in  the  position  of  Viator. 

H  Viator  only  makes  acquaintance  with  the  law  through  a  casual 
loss  of  his  watch,  law  is  to  Dominus  more  or  less  a  matter  of  busi- 
ness. Dominus  has  money  invested  in  house  property,  and  he  must 
be  a  lucky  man  indeed  if  he  does  not  every  now  and  again  find  the 
law's  assistance  necessary  to  the  management  of  his  investments. 
Possessor  is  the  tenant  of  one  of  his  houses,  with  a  lease  for  fourteen 
years,  subject  to  a  rent  payable  quarterly,  and  a  liability  of  the  ten- 
ant to  repair.  The  rent  is  in  arrear  for  a  whole  year,  the  premises 
are  grievously  out  of  repair,  and  altogether  Possessor  is  an  unsat- 
isfactory tenant.  Dominus  wishes  to  get  rid  of  his  tenant,  and  con- 
sults his  solicitor.     The  lease,  as  usual,  contains  a  provision  that  if 


THE    LAW   COURTS.  417 

the  rent  is  in  arrear,  and  the  premises  in  disrepair,  the  remainder 
of  the  term  is  to  be  forfeited  and  the  landlord  may  recover  posses- 
sion of  his  property.  An  action  of  ejectment  is  therefore  advised  to 
carry  out  this  desirable  purpose.     Accordingly  a  writ  is  issued. 

in  the  Queen's  Bench  Division  of  the  High  Court  of  Justice,  claim- 
ing, according  to  the  indorsement  on  the  back,  possession  of  the 
house,  the  rent  due,  and  damages  for  failure  to  repair.  L 
possible  that  Possessor  may  not  care  to  defend  his  leas  i,  and  al- 
though the  writ  is  served  upon  him,  does  not  intimate  his  intention 
of  disputing  the  claim  by  entering-  an  appearance  at  the  offi<  of 
the  court.  In  this  case  Dominus  may  sign  judgment  upon  the  !  tpse 
of  a  specified  time,  and  his  damages  for  dilapidations  will  be  as  I 

by  a  jury  in  the  Sheriff's  Court,  where  assessments  of  damages  upon 
non-appearance  to  the  writ  usually  take  place.  But  Possessor  is  a 
much  more  accommodating  tenant  than  is  usual  with  his  class  if  he 
takes-  this  course.  In  all  probability  he  will  appear,  and  Dominus 
must  prepare  himself  for  a  regular  legal  campaign. 

He  has  first  of  all  to  extend  his  line  in  the  form  of  a  "  Claim." 
This  is  the  beginning  of  the  so-called  "  pleadings,"  which  are  not 
pleadings  in  the  ordinary  sense  at  all,  but  a  series  of  written  attacks 
on  the  enemy  made  by  each  side  alternately  for  the  purpose  of  rec- 

j  onnoitering  one  another's  positions,  before  actually  engaging  in 
open  Court.  Formerly  pleading  was  a  mystery  known  to  few  but 
"special  pleaders."  These  practitioners  still  exist,  but  the  class  is 
rapidly  becoming  absorbed  into  the  ordinary  ranks  of  lawyers,  and 
the  business  of  a  special  pleader  is  sadly  curtailed  by  reason  of  the 
inroads  made  of  late  years  by  common  sense  upon  legal  cobwebs, 

.  especially  the  Common  Law  Procedure  Act  of  1852,  and  the  Judi- 
cature Act  of  1873.  Dominus  will  find  the  "  claim"  in  his  case,  al- 
though prepared  by  counsel  learned  in  the  law,  to  be  moderately 
intelligible  to  lay  capacity.  It  propounds  the  facts  that  he  is  owner 
of  the  property;  that  he  granted  the  lease  to  Possessor,  the  de- 
fendant; that  the  lease  contained  covenants  to  pay  rent  and  repair, 
and  a  clause  of  forfeiture  upon  breach  of  those  covenants;  that  the 
covenants  have  been  broken,  and  that  accordingly  Dominus  wants 
his  property  back,  together  with  his  rent,  and  damages  for  not  re- 
pairing. Possessor's  turn  now  comes,  and  he  retorts  with  his  "  De- 
fense," in  which  he  states  that  he  pays  into  court  the  rent  in  arrear, 
together  with  interest,  and  denies  that  the  premises  are  out  of  repair. 
All  that  Dominus  can  do  in  answer  is  to  take  his  rent  out  of  court, 
and  in  his  "  Reply,"  which  is  the  next  step  in  the  pleadings,  to  "  take 
issue"  on  the  cpiestion  of  the  repairs,  which  is  the  orthodox,  way  of 


413 


ENGLAND. 


reiterating  his  view  of  the  facts,  and  avowing  his  readiness  to  estab- 
lish it  by  proof  in  court. 

In  order  to  understand  the  meaning  of  Possessor's  maneuver, 
something  of  the  difference  in  the  English  system  of  jurisprudence 
between  lav/  and  equity  must  be  known.  Law  as  distinguished 
from  equity  always  keeps  a  man  strictly  to  his  bond.  Whatever  he 
undertakes  to  do,  unless  it  is  either  illegal  or  plrysically  impossible, 
he  must  do,  or  must  suffer  the  consequences  prescribed  in  his  con- 
tract. Equity  is  less  logical,  and  if  the  consequences  are  cruel,  or 
altogether  disproportionate  to  the  offense,  it  releases  the  person 
under  the  obligation  from  the  consequences  of  breaking  it.  For 
instance,  according  to  the  lease  granted  by  Doinmus,  if  the  rent 
were  in  arrear  for  a  fixed  time,  the  term  granted  was,  according  to 
the  principles  of  law,  at  once  forfeited,  although  the  rent  were  tend- 
ered the  day  after  the  expiration  of  the  time  fixed.  According,  how- 
ever, to  a  rule  established  in  equity,  if  the  tenant,  on  an  attempt 
being  made  to  evict  him,  paid  the  rent,  together  with  interest  and 
the  costs  incurred  by  the  landlord,  he  might  retain  the  lease.  This 
is  why  Possessor  paid  the  rent  into  court.  As,  however,  he  resisted 
giving  up  the  property,  he  was  bound  to  dispute  that  it  was  out  of 
repair,  because  equity  has  declined  to  interfere  with  the  strict  prin- 
ciple of  law  in  the  case  where  a  forfeiture  occurs  through  not  re- 
pairing. This  inconsistency  shows  that  equity,  although  originally 
founded  on  the  attribute  from  which  it  takes  its  name,  is  as  rigid  in 
its  rules  as  law  itself.  Until  the  reform  lately  carried  by  Lords 
Selborne  and  Cairns,  instead  of  pleading  equity  as  a  defense,  it 
was  necessary  to  go  to  the  Court  of  Chancery  to  have  one's  oppo- 
nent ordered  not  to  press  his  rights  in  the  other  courts,  which  were 
courts  of  law  only.  There  were,  in  fact,  two  jurisprudential  estab- 
lishments, each  with  no  connection  with  its  rival  over  the  way,  and 
in  then*  early  days  of  rivalry  cordially  hating  one  another.  The  re- 
form referred  to,  which  rather  late  in  the  day  adopted  an  established 
principle  of  business  in  legal  administration,  makes  it  possible  to 
obtain  all  the  law  and  equity  requisite  for  one's  case  at  the  same 
store.  It  thus  came  about  that  Dominus  and  Possessor  Mere  at 
issue  on  the  question  of  repairs. 

Meanwhile,  there  has  been  some  little  skirmishing  at  "Judges' 
Chambers."  These  are  rooms  in  Bolls  Gardens,  Chancery  Lane, 
where  a  judge  sits  to  bring  to  book  either  side  who  in  the  recon- 
noitering  preliminary  to  trial,  may  have  offended  against  the  laws  of 
war.  If  the  pleading  be  worded  vaguely  or  evasively,  the  offender 
is  made  to  repent  and  amend.     "Interrogatories"  are  another  form 


THE   LAW   COURTS.  Ill) 

of  attack  which  have  often  to  be  regulated  at  Judges'  Chambers. 
These  are  the  only  instrument  of  torture  now  known  to  the  law,  by 
means  of  which  a  litigant  may  ash  his  antagonist  on  paper  an\  qu 

tions  material  to  the  action,  and  have  them  answered  in  the  same 
way.  Possessor  has  asked  Dominus  some  very  troublesome  ques* 
tions,  tending  to  show  that  Dominus  condoned  the  forfeiture  of  the 
lease.  Dominus  appeals  to  the  judge  at  chambers  to  say  whether 
he  is  to  submit  to  the  impertinence.  He  has  to  submit,  hut  finds 
when  he  swears  his  answer,  as  drawn  up  by  his  lawyers,  that  lie  lias 
not  given  his  adversary  much  information  of  any  use  to  him  after  all. 
All  the  preliminaries  having  been  settled,  Dominus  now  gives  his 
adversary  notice  that  he  is  ready  to  try  the  case  before  a  special  jury 
of  Middlesex — that  is  to  say,  a  jury  composed  of  merchants,  bankers, 
and  professional  men,  as  distinguished  from  the  rank  and  tile  of 
jurors.  After  the  delay  inseparable  from  law,  Dominus  sees  the 
case  of  "Dominus  v.  Possessor"  in  the  law  notices  of  his  morning's 
newspaper,  and  posts  dowrn  to  Westminster  Hall.  There  was  no 
reason  for  any  great  hurry,  as  there  are  several  cases  in  front.  The 
judge  is  sittting  in  the  plain  black  robes  always  worn  when  a  judge 
sits  alone  to  try  civil  cases,  in  a  court  full  of  law  and  lawyers,  hut 
deficient  in  ah*.  There  is  a  great  display  of  bleached  horsehair  on 
the  Bar  benches.  Those  gentlemen  in  silk  gowns  in  the  front  row 
are  Queen's  counsel.  The  gentlemen  in  stuff  gowns  on  the  back 
benches  are  junior  counsel,  not  honored  with  the  complimentary 
retainer  of  the  Crown.  The  difference  between  the  two  is  substan- 
tial. Queen's  counsel  earn  higher  fees,  but  are  not  able  to  do  rou- 
tine wrork,  such  as  devising  those  pleadings  and  answers  to  interrog- 
atories before  mentioned.  Nominally,  the  higher  rank  is  conferred 
through  the  grace  and  favor  of  the  Crown;  but,  in  fact,  any  barrister 
of  reputation,  if  there  is  room  for  a  new  Queen's  counsel  on  his 
circuit,  may  "take  silk"  by  asking  the  Chancellor.  Many  find  the 
humbler  "stuff"  more  remunerative.  In  the  "well,"  a  seat  a  step 
below  that  of  the  Queen's  counsel,  sit  the  solicitors,  ready  to  give 
then-  counsel  a  reminder  when  needed.  But  the  Associate,  the 
official  sitting  under  the  judge,  has  sworn  the  jury,  and  a  case  has 
begun.  It  is  an  action  brought  by  a  man  who  fell  down  a  cellar  in 
a  public-house,  and  claims  compensation  The  next  ease  is  an  action 
on  a  bill  of  exchange,  in  which  the  defendant  contends  that  he  was 
induced  to  give  the  bill  by  fraud.  Then  follows  an  action  in  which 
the  plaintiff,  a  maiden  lady,  complains  of  a  livery  stable  as  a  nuis- 
ance. The  horses,  she  says,  make  a  great  noise,  and  keep  her  awake, 
and  she  asks  for  an  injunction  to  the  defendant  to  conduct  his  busi- 


420  ENGLAND. 

ness  with  more  consideration  for  her  nerves.  Then  we  have  an 
action  for  the  non-delivery  of  a  cargo  of  wheat,  and  an  action  for 
breach  of  promise  of  marriage,  in  which  the  young  lady  creates  the 
usual  amount  of  interest,  and  the  man  has  written  the  ordinary 
quantity  of  nonsense.  Then  comes  an  action  of  libel,  which  the 
jury  seem  to  think  is  a  case  of  the  pot  against  the  kettle,  as  they 
return  as  damages  the  farthing  which  has  so  often  been  given  in  the 
same  circumstances,  but  from  which  so  few  take  warning  not  to 
tempt  then  fate. 

At  last,  and  perhaps  after  a  day  or  two  of  waiting,  "Dominus 
and  Possessor"  is  called,  and  the  jury  are  sworn.  Each  side  is 
represented  by  a  Queen's  counsel  and  a  junior  counsel.  The  junior 
counsel  for  the  plaintiff  begins  by  "opening  the  pleadings" — that  is, 
informing  the  jury  in  a  dozen  words  or  so  what  are  the  names  of  the 
litigants,  what  the  action  is  about,  and  what  questions  appear  to  be 
in  dispute  between  them.  His  "leader"  then  rises  and  addresses 
the  court  and  jury  at  length,  telling  the  whole  story  of  the  difficulties 
of  Dominus  with  his  tenant,  and  asks  the  jury  to  end  them  by  turn- 
ing the  tenant  out.  Dominus  himself  is  then  sworn,  and  is  exam- 
ined by  his  junior  counsel.  He  is  cross-examined  by  the  defendant's 
Queen's  counsel,  and  a  few  questions  are  put  to  him  thirdly  by  his 
own  leading  counsel,  with  a  view  to  re-establish  his  evidence  if  at 
all  damaged  by  the  cross-examination.  The  same  process  is  gone 
through  in  the  case  of  the  surveyor  and  the  builder,  who  are  next 
called.  "While  these  witnesses  are  examined  the  judge  inquires 
whether  the  jury  are  to  be  asked  to  assess  the  amount,  if  any, 
which  Possessor  ought  to  have  spent  on  repairs.  The  counsel  for 
Dominus  thereupon  suggests  that  the  amount  should  be  referred 
to  an  official  referee,  if  the  jury  find  that  some  repairs  ought  to 
have  been  done.  The  defendant's  counsel  agree,  and  Dominus  is 
content,  because  if  he  can  turn  Possessor  out  to  make  room  for  a 
better  tenant,  he  does  not  care  much  for  the  repairs.  The  surveyor 
goes  on  to  detail  how  the  ceiling  of  the  back  parlor  had  fallen  in, 
the  boiler  and  water-pipes  were  out  of  order,  the  floor  of  the  pantry 
damaged,  and  so  on.  The  defendant's  Queen's  counsel  then  takes 
up  the  parable,  and  declares  that  Dominus  with  his  rent  in  his 
pocket,  and  his  house  in  a  tolerably  good  state  of  repair,  is  as  well 
off  as  he  deserves,  without  wanting  to  turn  Possessor  out  into  the 
street.  As  to  the  house,  Dominus  knew  its  state  all  along,  and  has 
taken  rent  from  Possessor  since,  and  therefore  he  cannot  now  forfeit 
the  lease  on  the  allegation  that  it  is' out  of  repair.  "Witnesses  are 
called  to  support  this  view  of  the  matter,  and   Dominus,  to  his 


THE    LAW   COURTS.  \l\ 

surprise,  finds  his  own  witnesses  about  tlie  want  of  repairs  flatly 
contradicted.  The  counsel  for  his  opponent  then  "sums  up"  liis 
evidence,  and  his  own  counsel  replies  on  the  whole  case.  The  judge 
then  proceeds  to  charge  the  jury,  and  tells  them  that  they  must  first 
consider  whether  the  house  was  substantially  in  want  of  repair,  and 
if  they  after  weighing  the  evidence  think  that  it  was,  then,  did  the 
plaintiff  receive  rent  knowing  what  the  real  state  of  the  house  was, 
so  as  to  waive  or  condone  the  forfeiture.  The  jury,  after  retiring  to 
consult,  find  as  their  verdict  that  the  house  -was  out  of  repair,  but 
that  the  plaintiff  knew  of  its  state  and  took  his  rent,  but  thai  the 
house  had  again  fallen  into  disrepair  since.  Both  sides  upon  this 
claim  the  verdict,  and  the  judge  says  that  he  cannot  give  his  decision 
now,  but  must  reserve  the  matter  for  further  consideration. 

Dominus  now  finds  himself  embarked  on  a  considerable  litiga- 
tion. The  judge  after  a  week  or  two  hears  an  argument  on  the 
question  of  law,  and  decides  against  Dominus.  Thereupon  he  ap- 
peals to  the  Court  of  Appeal,  but  meanwhile  Possessor,  not  to  be 
outdone,  applies  to  a  Divisional  Court  for  a  new  trial  on  the  ground 
that  the  verdict  was  against  the  weight  of  the  evidence  with  regard 
to  the  need  of  repairs,  and  that  the  judge  did  not  rightly  direct  the 
jury  in  point  of  law.  The  law  does  not  consider  juries  infallible,  and 
sometimes  sets  their  verdicts  aside,  if  the  judge  who  tried  the  case 
thinks  that  they  were  misled.  In  the  Divisional  Court  Dominus 
finds  two  judges,  one  of  whom  happens  to  be  the  judge  who  tried 
his  case.  They  wear  scarlet  and  ermine  robes,  as  it  is  a  saint's  day, 
and  not  the  black  and  ermine  ordinarily  worn  in  the  Divisional 
Court  in  winter,  or  the  violet  robes  of  summer.  Possessor  has 
obtained  an  order  to  show  cause  why  there  should  not  be  a  new 
trial,  and  Dominus's  counsel  have  to  show  cause.  Possessor's  coun- 
sel are  then  heard  in  support  of  his  contention,  and  the  judges 
decide  that  there  must  be  no  new  trial.  The  verdict  therefore 
stands,  and  success  for  Dominus  dejoends  on  his  persuading  the 
Court  of  Appeal  that  its  effect  is  to  entitle  him  to  judgment. 

The  Court  of  Appeal  is  composed  of  three  Lords  Justices.  The 
other  three,  making  up  the  six  permanent  judges  of  the  Court,  are 
sitting  in  another  chamber,  hearing  appeals  which  have  more  equity 
than  law  in  them.  The  three  judges  in  either  chamber  are  some- 
times supplemented  by  the  Lord  Chancellor  himself,  who  ordinarily 
only  sits  in  the  House  of  Lords;  or  the  Master  of  the  I  tolls,  who  is 
commonly  to  be  found  sitting  by  himself,  hearing  equity  cases;  or 
the  Chief  Justice  of  England,  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  <  iommoD  Pleas, 
or  the  Chief  Baron,  who  usually  preside  in  Divisional  Couri  3  or  take 


422  ENGLAND. 

jury  cases.  These  supplementary  judges  of  the  Coiu*t  of  Appeal  be- 
long both  to  that  court  and  the  High  Court,  which  together  are 
called  the  Supreme  Court  of  Judicature.  The  Lords  Justices  wear 
their  judicial  wigs,  but  nothing  more  showy  in  the  way  of  judicial 
costume  than  the  black  silk  gown  which  is  the  least  of  the  cere- 
monial costumes  of  the  judges.  Doniinus  wonders  why  an  Appeal 
Court  should  be  arrayed  in  less  glory  than  the  Court  below.  But 
the  fact  is,  the  Court  of  Appeal  took  its  origin  from  a  court  of  con- 
'  sulfation  rather  than  of  jurisdiction,  and  the  black  gown  is  the  fa- 
tigue dress  of  judges.  The  mysteries  of  judicial  millinery  are  indeed 
great,  and  can  be  fathomed  probably  by  no  one  but  the  oldest 
"  body  clerk "  among  the  attendants  of  the  judges.  On  the  first 
day  of  Michaelmas  sittings  the  Lords  Justices,  when  they  march  up 
"Westminster  Hall,  wear  a  black  robe  liberally  sprinkled  with  gold 
lace;  but  when  they  go  circuit,  and  try  prisoners,  they  become  "red 
judges  "  so  familiar  to  the  eyes  of  the  criminal  classes.  On  solemn 
occasions,  as  in  the  Westminster  Hall  procession  or  in  charging-  a 
Grand  Jury,  the  judges  always  wear  the  full-bottomed  wig,  a  head- 
dress which  looks  from  behind  like  a  straw  bee-hive  and  in  front 
<_rives  them  the  appearance  of  Egyptian  sphinxes — instead  of  the 
short  uncurled  wig  now  worn  by  the  Lords  Justices.  For  Court 
or  personal  mourning,  both  judges  and  Queen's  counsel  wear  their 
bands  with  a  strip  or  fold  down  the  middle,  and  lawn  cuffs  or  •"weep- 
ers "  on  their  sleeves.  Both  the  counsel  of  Dominus  are  heard  in 
support  of  the  appeal,  and  Possessor's  counsel  are  heard  on  the 
other  side.  A  great  deal  is  said  about  continuous  breach,  and 
waiver,  and  other  things  which  Dominus  imperfectly  understands 
but  the  upshot  is  that  the  court  reverse  the  decision  of  the  judge, 
and  enter  judgment  for  Dominus. 

But  Possessor  will  not  give  up  his  judgment  easily,  and  he  ap- 
peals to  the  House  of  Lords,  the  court  of  law  of  the  last  resort  for 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  Here  English  cases  find  themselves  in 
company  with  Irish  appeals,  which  are  similar  in  kind,  and  decided 
according  to  the  same  legal  principles,  and  Scotch  ajipeals  coming 
from  an  altogether  distinct  jurisprudence,  with  law  terms  strange 
and  uncouth  to  the  English  lawyer,  in  whose  eyes  the  law  of  Scot- 
land is  the  law  of  a  foreign  country.  The  argument  takes  place  in 
the  gilded  chamber  where  the  Lords  sit  tor  legislation.  The  Quean's 
counsel  are  in  their  full-bottomed  wigs;  the  Lord  Chancellor  is  .  a 
the  woolsack  in  his  wig  and  robes,  but  the  other  members  present 
although  lawyers,  wear  no  official  costume.  They  sit  not  as  judj  i  ^, 
nor  as  lawyers,  but  as  peers;  and  it  is  only  by  a  custom  barely  a 


THE    LAW   COURTS.  VI?, 

hundred  years  old  that  lay  peers  do  not  take  part  La  the  d        . 
the  legal  questions  submitted  to  their  House.    Of  Late  3  cars,  under  an 
Act  of  Parliament  passed  in  1876,  peerages  for  life  have  been  insti- 
\  tuted  for  the  purpose  of  conferring  them  <>n  lawyers;  and  these  1 

peers,  together  with  the  ex-Chancellors  and  other  lawyers  M 
have  beeu  ennobled,  are  the  effective  force  of  the  House  as  a  Law 
court.  Dominus  observes  that  the  atmosphere  of  the  highest  Court 
of  Appeal  in  the  country  is  serener  than  that  of  the  courts  below. 
The  arguments  proceed  smoothly  and  with  little  interruption,  and 
afterwards  the  Lords  deliver  their  opinions  one  by  one,  in  the  form 
of  arguments  for  the  consideration  of  the  House,  and  not  j  >nts. 

The  opinion  of  the  Lords  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  Court  of  Appeal, 
and  Dominus  is  triumphant.  All  this  time,  however,  Possessor  lias 
stuck  to  the  house  like  a  limpet,  and  the  lease  has  become  appreci- 
ably less  since  the  writ  was  issued.  Moreover,  Dominus  has  in- 
curred some  heavy  costs,  which  it  does  not  seem  clear  that  Posses- 
sor, although  condemned  in  costs,  will  entirely  defray;  and  his 
triumph  is  dashed  with  the  reflection  that  going  to  law,  however 
pleasing  the  excitement,  is  an  expensive  luxury. 

The  rooted  horror  of  law,  induced  by  fear  of  a  lawyer's  bill,  ac- 
counts for  much  of  the  Englishman's  want  of  acquaintance  with  legal 
procedure.  He  will  generally  pay  any  moderate  claim  made  upon 
him,  so  long  as  it  does  not  amount  to  extortion.  If  his  wife  hires  a 
housemaid  who  turns  out  badly,  the  master  gets  rid  of  the  servant, 
but  pays  the  month's  wages  in  lieu  of  notice,  although  if  the  servant 
is  in  the  wrong  she  is  not  entitled  to  them.  Sometimes,  however,  a 
principle  is,  or  is  supposed  to  be,  involved,  in  which  case  the  En- 
glishman will  do  his  duty  in  his  family,  as  he  is  expected  to  do  it 
elsewhere.  The  cook,  let  us  say,  gives  herself  airs;  one  morning  she 
takes  it  into  her  head  not  to  come  to  family  prayers,  and  when  her 
mistress  remonstrates  with  her,  declares  it  to  be  her  fixed  intention 
not  to  attend  prayers.  She  gives  no  reason  for  her  resolve:  per- 
haps she  thinks  the  prayers  too  long,  or  too  short,  or  devoid  of 
earnestness,  or  too  unctuous;  perhaps  she  has  a  philosophical  re- 
gard for  the  maxim  that  "labor  is  prayer,"  and  1  be  sure 
that  the  breakfast  coffee  is  in  good  order.  At  any  rate,  she  declines 
to  come,  and  Paterfamilias  resolves  that  if  so  she  shall  go  alt  >gether. 
His  resolution  is  the  more  firm  as  he  finds  that  absence  from  j 
does  not  insure  perfect  coffee.  Family  prayers  to  his  mind  are  not 
only  a  religious  exercise,  but  a  morning  parade  of  the  servant."., 
which  a  reasonable  regard  for  discipline  requires.  If  the  servants 
do  not  all  attend,  he  may  have  a  sonant  in  his  employ  for  yen  -, 


424  ENGLAND. 

without  even  knowing  it.  He  thinks  they  ought  to  attend,  down  to 
the  sculleryniaid.  Accordingly  he  dismisses  the  cook,  and  this  time 
he  declines  to  give  her  the  month's  wages  for  the  time  which  she 
has  not  served.  A  cook  with  such  independent  notions  has,  of 
course,  friends  and  advisers  outside,  and  a  solicitor  of  the  clasi  or- 
dinarily practicing  in  County  Courts  is  without  difficulty  found  to 
take  the  matter  up.  Paterfamilias  receives  a  polite  letter,  asking  on 
"behalf  of  his  client,  Ancilla,  the  cook,  that  the  month's  wages  may 
be  paid,  together  with  law  charges,  or  the  writer  referred  to  the  so- 
licitor of  Paterfamilias  who  may  accept  service  of  a  summons  in  the 
County  Court.  It  is  an  odd  example  of  the  Englishman's  almost 
superstitious  respect  for  the  law,  that  he  will  often  not  only  give 
way  on  receipt  of  a  lawyer's  letter  of  this  kind,  but  will  also  pay  the 
lawyer's  charges,  which  the  lawyer  has  not  the  shadow  of  right  to 
enforce,  but  for  which  he  always  asks.  Paterfamilias,  however,  on 
the  question  of  principle  is  of  sterner  stuff;  he  does  not  care  to  con- 
sult the  family  solicitor,  who,  he  knows4  never  goes  near  a  County 
Court,  and  he  is  a  little  curious  to  see  how  the  matter  will  go  if  left 
to  itself.  He,  accordingly,  writes  and  asks  that  the  summons  may 
be  sent  to  him,  and  in  due  course  it  arrives.  This  is  how  the  action 
of  "Ancilla  against  Paterfamilias"  comes  into  existence. 

Paterfamilias  finds  that  he  does  not  require  to  be  much  of  a  law- 
yer to  carry  his  case  through.  In  the  County  Court  there  is  not,  as 
in  the  High  Court,  any  of  the  preliminary  skirmishing  of  pleadings. 
He  finds  that  the  summons  kindly  tells  him  in  very  plain  language 
what  he  is  to  do.  If  the  defendant  wishes  to  set  up  as  a  defense 
that  she  is  a  married  woman,  or  infancy,  or  that  the  statute  of  limit- 
ation has  run  out,  the  summons  says  that  notice  must  be  given  to 
the  plaintiff.  But  Paterfamilias  only  wishes  to  set  up  that  the  cook 
would  not  come  to  prayers,  so  he  leaves  things  alone,  and  awaits  the 
day  in  the  next  month  named  for  the  hearing  of  the  case. 

Arrived  at  the  court-house  he  finds  the  officials  ready  enough  to 
give  him  information.  Under  their  guidance  he  first  attends  the 
Ptegistrar's  room,  where  he  hears  "Ancilla  against  Paterfamilias" 
called  out  among  some  hundred  others,  and  is  asked  whether  the 
claim  is  disputed.  He  says  that  it  is,  and  is  told  that  the  case  will 
be  heard  before  the  judge.  As  soon  as  the  judge  arrives,  he  plunges 
at  once  into  the  judgment  summonses,  which  are  a  most  important 
part  of  the  jurisdiction  of  County  Courts.  Until  recently  the  very 
sound  principle  of  rnoralhy  that  a  man  ought  to  pay  his  debts  was 
enforced  by  putting  the  defaulter  into  prison.  If  a  man  has  money, 
he  will  generally  spend  it  rather  than  go  to  prison;  and  if  his  friends 


THE    LA IV   COURTS.  12.", 

have  money  they  "will,  until  tired  of  so  doing,  come  i<>  his  help.  The 
power  of  imprisonment  was  thus  a  valuable  ally  of  the  creditor,  and 
if  the  debtor  had  no  money  and  no  friends,  the  creditor  had  at  hast 
the  satisfaction  of  having  his  debtor  locked  up.  It  was,  however, 
thought  that  vengeance  did  not  belong  to  the  creditor,  and  that  it 
was  not  right  to  put  indirect  pressure  on  his  friends.  Accordingly, 
in  1869,  imprisonment  for  debt  was  abolished,  unless  it  were  proved 
that  the  debtor  had  means,  but  woidd  not  pay.  As  the  County 
Courts  are  the  machinery  for  collecting  a  great  number  of  debts 
which  cannot  be  disputed,  the  judges  are  constantly  called  upon  to 
say  whether  a  man  has  or  has  not  the  means  of  paying.  Pater- 
familias observes  that  many  of  the  debtors  whose  cases  are  brought 
before  the  judge  seem  to  be  living  very  .comfortably,  but  they  al- 
ways explain  that  they  are  living  with  their  mother-in-law,  or  that  a 
kind  uucle  supplies  their  necessities.  Imprisonment,  therefore,  is 
not  ordered  very  often,  and  on  the  whole  Paterfamilias  thinks  that 
the  burden  of  proof  has  been  thrown  on  the  wrong  shoulders,  and 
the  debtor  ought  to  prove  that  he  has  no  means,  and  not  the  cred- 
itor that  he  has.  What  generally  happens  in  a  County  Court  is 
that  the  judge  breaks  the  blow  of  his  judgment  by  allowing  the 
defaulter  to  satisfy  the  claim  in  easy  installments. 

The  ordinary  run  of  County  Court  cases  follows.  There  are  two 
little  boxes,  one  on  the  judge's  right  and  the  other  on  his  left,  which 
are  occupied  respectively  by  the  plaintiff  and  the  defendant.  They 
stand  here  after  the  manner  of  lighting-cocks  held  in  check,  and  a 
torrent  of  vituperation  is  often  exchanged  across  the  table,  espe- 
cially when  there  are  female  litigants.  A  laundress  sues  for  the 
amount  of  a  washing  bill,  and  the  employer  resists  the  claim  on 
the  ground  that  her  collars  and  cuffs  have  been  lost,  and  her  hus- 
band's shirt-fronts  spoiled  by  bad  ironing.  A  Jew  money-lender 
sues  a  clerk  in  a  bank  on  a  bill  for  £20,  which  includes  interest  at 
sixty  per  cent.  The  defendant  declares  that  the  Jew  knew  he  was 
only  surety  for  a  fellow  clerk,  and  yet  he  allowed  the  other  clerk  to 
leave  the  country  without  suing  him.  A  baker  claims  for  bread 
supplied,  and  the  customer  affirms  that  his  wife  paid  the  baker's 
man.  An  old  lady  demands  compensation  for  tumbling  into  a  coal- 
hole left  open  in  the  street.  The  householder  says  it  v*is  not  his 
fault,  but  the  coal  merchant's,  whose  men  left  the  coal-plate  open. 
In  most  of  these  cases  there  is  a  great  conflict  of  evidence,  but  ilie 
judge  manages  to  make  up  his  mind  quickly,  being  guided  by  the 
appearance  and  manner  of  the  witnesses,  as  their  words  alone  are 
commonly  in  direct  opposition  to  those  of  the  witnesses  on  the  other 


426  ENGLAND. 

side.  Sometimes  a  jury  of  five  men  substituted  in  the  County  Court 
for  the  traditional  twelve  is  called  to  the  judge's  assistance,  espe- 
cially if  the  case,  being  too  trilling  for  the  higher  tribunal,  has  been 
sent  down  to  be  tried  from  the  High  Court;  but  Paterfamilias  ob- 
serves that  jury  trial  hardly  nourishes  in  the  alien  soil  of  the  County 
Court.  The  judge  is  so  used  to  try  the  facts  himself,  that  he  tries 
them  when  it  is  not  his  but  the  jury's  duty  to  do  so.  This  is  the 
sort  of  dialogue  that  Paterfamilias  hears  at  the  end  of  a  jury  case. 
Judge:  "  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  the  evidence  clearly  points  to  a  ver- 
dict for  the  Railway  Company."  Foreman:  "The  jury  find  for  the 
plaintiff  with  £20  damages."  Advocate:  "I  move,  sir,  for  a  new 
trial."     Judge:  "New  trial  granted." 

The  case  of  "Ancilla  against  Paterfamilias,"  when  called  on,  does 
not  take  long  to  try.  The  cook's  solicitor  details  the  facts  with  as 
much  of  flourish  as  he  can  introduce.  Paterfamilias  admits  them 
all,  and  explains  that  the  refusal  of  the  cook  to  attend  prayers  was 
the  ground  of  her  dismissal.  It  would  be  hazardous  to  say  what 
the  decision  of  the  County  Court  judge  on  so  weighty  a  question 
of  domestic  government  would  or  ought  to  be.  Perhaps  the  judge 
is  epigrammatic,  and  says  that  Ancilla  was  hired  "  to  cook  and  not 
to  pray,"  or  perhaps  he  takes  a  broader  view.  If  the  judge  is 
against  Paterfamilias  he  may  appeal  if  he  can  make  out  that  a 
question  of  law  is  involved.  If  there  is  an  appeal,  the  case  then 
gets  into  the  hands  of  Paterfamilias'  solicitor,  and  is  heard  before 
one  of  the  Divisional  Courts,  which  have  already  been  described. 

Whatever  the  condition  of  knowledge  among  the  Queen's  subjects 
of  the  working  of  the  law  temporal,  it  could  hardly  be  expected  that 
they  should  know  much  of  the  procedure  of  the  spiritual  courts. 
When  lawyers  meet  clergymen,  we  may  expect  something  of  sub- 
tlety and  obscurity.  Still,  the  necessities  of  an  era  in  the  history  of 
the  Church  of  England  have  brought  out  many  instruments  of  ec- 
clesiastical procedure  from  their  dusty  receptacles,  and  precedents 
from  dark  corners  of  the  law  blink  their  eyes  in  the  light  of  day. 
If  it  depended  on  individuals  to  put  ecclesiastical  law  in  force,  the 
dust  and  darkness  would  undoubtedly  remain  little  disturbed.  But 
the  Church  at  that  time  was  divided  into  High  Church  and  Low 
Church  camps,  the  one  ranging  itself  under  the  Church  Union,  and 
the  other  under  the  Church  Association,  both  being  well  organized 
bodies,  with  funds  and  energy  enough  to  carry  through  a  suit. 
The  accused  in  an  ecclesiastical  suit  might  generally  be  assumed 
to  have  behind  him  the  former,  and  the  accuser  the  latter  of  these 
organizations. 


THE   LAW   COURTS.  427 

The  main  outlines  of  ecclesiastical  procedure  are  now  I" 
found  in  the  Public  "Worship  Regulation  Act,  passed  in  L874,  with 
a  view  to  simplify  the  difficulties  of  the  law,  which  were  consider  id 
to  favor  unduly  those  who  at  the  time  were  described  as  intro- 
ducing "the  mass  in  masquerade"  into  the  Church.  Simplicius,  let 
us  assume,  is  an  inhabitant  of  a  parish  of  which  Laticlavius  lias  b<  en 
appointed  parson.     Laticlavius  belongs  to  the  section  of  the  High 

I  Church  party  which  are  generally  called  Ritualists.  His  church  has 
more  the  outward  appearance  of  a  Roman  Catholic  than  an  English 
church.  He  has  a  crucifix  on  the  screen,  and  lighted  caudles  on  the 
altar,  and  the  scent  of  incense  pervades  the  building.  He  affects 
colored  stoles,  and  wears  vestments  during  the  celebration  of  the 
Holy  Communion,  and  turns  his  back  on  the  people  in  breaking  the 
bread  and  taking  the  cup.  He  mixes  water  with  the  wine,  and  uses 
wafer  bread.  These  things  grate  on  the  feelings  of  Simplicius  and 
many  other  parishioners,  who  consider  them  inconsistent  with  the 
simplicity  of  worship  which  they  prefer,  and  to  which  they  have 
hitherto  been  used,  and  suggestive  of  doctrines  not  recognized  by 
the  Church  of  England.  Laticlavius  is  appealed  to,  but  he  is  un- 
able with  any  loyalty  to  his  principles  to  alter  his  practice.  Noth- 
ing remains  but  an  appeal  to  the  law,  and  the  first  step  is  to  repre- 
sent the  grievance  of  the  parishioners  to  the  bishop  of  the  diocese. 

The  representation  is  made  in  the  name  of  Simplicius  and  two 
other  parishioners,  and  is  a  formal  document  setting  out  the  heads 

/  of  complaint.  Upon  reading  this  representation  it  is  open  to  the 
Bishop  to  decide  that  further  proceedings  shall  not  be  taken,  but  lie 
must  give  the  reasons  of  his  opinion  in  writing  to  be  solemnly  filed 
in  the  diocesan  registry.  In  the  case  in  question  he  thinks  there  is 
good  ground  for  complaint,  and  he  sends  the  representation  to  the 
accused  parson,  and  proposes  to  him  and  also  the  complainants  a 
friendly  arbitration  between  them.  Neither  party  is  prepared  to 
agree  to  this  course,  and  the  matter  is  thereupon  transmitted  to  the 
ecclesiastical  judge,  whose  office  was  in  the  Public  Worship  Regula- 
tion Act  constituted  or  rather  reconstituted  by  Parliament.  Lati- 
clavius has  time  given  him  to  answer  in  writing  the  charge  made, 
and  on  the  appointed  day  the  judge  hears  the  witnesses  which  both 
sides  produce,  and  the  arguments  of  their  counsel.  He  is  of  opinion 
that  Laticlavius  has  infringed  the  law,  and  issues  a  monition  to  him 
to  abstain  for  the  future  from  the  practices  which  the  judge  con- 
siders illegal  If  Laticlavius  should  not  submit  to  this  decision,  an 
order  will  be  made  upon  him  forbidding  him  to  perform  service  in 
the  church  or  to  exercise  the  cure  of  souls  for  a  term  of  not  in 


428  ENGLAND. 

than  three  months.  This  is  by  way  of  punishment  for  contumacy, 
and  if  before  the  end.  of  the  term  Laticlavius  should  not  submit  in 
writing,  the  prohibition  is  continued  indefinitely,  and  he  eventually 
■will  lose  his  living. 

But  an  appeal  lies  from  the  decision  of  the  judge  to  the  Judicial 
Committee  of  the  Privy  Council,  and  Laticlavius  takes  advantage  of 
this  respite.  Ecclesiastical  appeals  are  part  of  the  miscellaneous 
jurisdiction  of  this  anomalous  court  of  law.  Simplicius  will  find  it 
sitting,  not  at  Westminster  or  Lincoln's  Inn,  but  in  a  pleasant  and 
luxurious  room,  not  easily  discovered,  in  the  office  of  the  Privy  Coun- 
cil just  round  the  corner  of  Downing  Street.  There  is  a  desk  for 
the  counsel  who  is  arguing,  some  seats  round  a  table  for  others  who 
have  business  here,  and  very  scanty  accommodation  for  the  outside 
public.  The  rest  of  the  room,  and  by  far  its  greater  portion,  is 
railed  off  for  the  judicial  Privy  Councilors,  who  sit  scattered  about 
it  in  comfortable  chairs.  The  place  has  not  the  appearance  of  a 
court  of  law,  and  its  ways  are  not  the  ways  of  the  ordinary  law  courts. 
There  is  an  air  of  officialism  rather  than  of  publicity  about  it.  It  is 
not  open  half  an  hour  before  the  sitting  begins  as  is  usual  with  law 
courts,  and  the  Privy  Councilors  do  not  enter  the  court  like  judges. 
But  as  soon  as  the  Privy  Councilors  are  seated,  the  doors  are  opened, 
and  the  lawyers  and  public  admitted.  When  a  case  has  been  argued, 
the  profane  vulgar  are  turned  out  and  are  recalled,  while  one  of  the 
Privy  Councilors  delivers  their  decision,  which  is  not  a  judgment, 
but  in  the  form  of  advice  to  the  Queen.  The  members  of  the  com- 
mittee, from  time  to  time,  include  the  Lord  Chancellor,  the  ex-Chan- 
cellors, the  Chief  Justice  of  England,  the  Master  of  the  Polls,  the 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas,  the  Lords  Justices,  and  other 
judges,  who  may  have  been  made  Privy  Councilors,  and  certain 
permanent  judges  raised  from  the  Bench,  either  of  England  or 
India;  but  they  do  not,  as  in  their  own  courts,  deliver  each  his  own 
judgment;  the  judgment  of  the  majority  is  delivered  for  all,  and  an 
expression  of  dissent  is  not  allowed. 

Simplicius  has  the  curiosity  to  attend  the  committee  before  his 
case  is  heard.  Appeals  from  the  courts  of  the  Queen's  dominions 
abroad  are  the  staple  of  the  business,  varied  by  an  occasional  half 
judicial,  half  administrative  case,  such  as  an  application  for  the  ex- 
tension of  a  patent  beyond  the  usual  fourteen  years  by  an  inventor 
who  has  not  reaped  so  much  advantage  from  it  as  he  ought.  Near 
home,  cases  come  from  the  Channel  Islands  and  the  Isle  of  Man. 
Rajahs  and  Zemindars,  and  Parsee  merchants  carry  their  disputes 
here  from  India,  and  find  themselves  litigants  side  by  side  with 


THE    LAW   COURTS.  429 

"West  Indian  planters.  The  French  civil  code  of  Canada  has  to  be 
interpreted,  and  a  meaning  given  to  the  Roman-Dutch  law  of  Cey- 
lon. Australia  sends  a  supply  of  knotty  commercial  difficulties,  and 
even  the  west  coast  of  Africa  is  not  without  a  share  in  the  argu- 
ments. Every  quarter  of  the  globe  exports  litigation  to  the  Judi- 
cial Committee  of  the  Privy  Council. 

A  day  is  specially  appointed  to  hear  the  appeal  of  Laticlavius, 
because  there  must  be  ecclesiastical  assessors.  An  archbishop  and 
four  bishops  support  the  lay  Privy  Councilors.  On  the  question 
of  the  vestments,  the  difference  between  the  Ritualists  and  their 
opponents  seems  to  he  in  a  narrow  compass.  By  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity, passed  in  the  first  year  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  it  is  directed 
that  "  the  ornaments  of  the  Church,  and  the  mhhsters  thereof,  shall 
be  retained  and  be  in  use  as  were  in  this  Church  of  England,  by 
authority  of  Parliament,  in  the  second  year  of  King  Edward  VI., 
until  other  order  shall  be  therein  taken  by  the  authority  of  the 
Queen's  Majesty,  with  the  advice  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Commis- 
sioners, or  of  the  metropolitan  of  this  realm."  Both  sides  admit 
that  in  the  second  year  of  King  Edward  VI.  vestments  were  in  use 
by  authority  of  Parliament,  but  certain  "  advertisem<  ats,"  or  admo- 
nitions, were  issued  by  the  Queen  in  155G  with  the  advice  required 
by  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  which  provide  "  that  every  minister  say- 
ing public  prayers,  or  ministering  the  sacraments  or  other  rites  of 
the  Church,  shall  wear  a  comely  surplice  with  sleeves."  The  Rit- 
ualists say  that  this  direction  is  not  an  "  other  order  "  contemplated 
by  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  because  it  forbids  nothing,  and  only 
enjoins  at  least  a  "  comely  surplice  with  sleeves,"  to  which  they  are 
entitled  to  add  cope,  alb,  and  chasuble.  The  Judicial  Committee, 
however,  had  previously  disagreed  with  this  latter  view;  they  in 
this  case  maintain  then  -previous  decisions,  so  that  the  monition  to 
Laticlavius  is  affirmed. 

The  law  and  the  law  courts,  as  will  partly  be  gathered  from  the 
foregoing  illustrations  of  legal  administration,  are  constantly,  like 
other  institutions  of  the  country,  in  a  state  of  transition.  The  Judi- 
cature Acts  concentrated  into  one  Supreme  Court  the  whole  judicial 
staff,  which  had  up  to  that  time  been  scattered  among  distinct  cmnts 
of  equal  rank,  and  effected  a  fusion  of  the  divergent  principles  which 
those  courts  acknowledged,  but  time  was  required  to  reap  the  full 
fruits  of  the  reform.  The  relation  between  the  Supr<  me  Court  and 
the  County  Courts  is  among  the  legal  subjects  which  from  time  to 
time  occupy  the  attention  of  the  Legislature,  the  question  being 
whether  the  true  policy  is  to 'strengthen  the  caliber  of  the  County 


430  ENGLAND. 

Court  judges,  or  to  put  a  stop  to  the  transfer  of  legal  business  to 
these  lower  tribunals,  which  has  been  on  the  increase  year  by  year. 
Other  subjects  are  canvassed  from  time  to  time.  The  Judicial  Com- 
mittee of  the  Privy  Council,  in  its  colonial  as  "well  as  its  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction,  has  been,  in  regard  to  the  mode  of  choosing  the  judges 
who  are  summoned  to  its  deliberations  and  the  conduct  of  its  busi- 
ness, subjected  to  criticisms  which  are  well  enough  deserved  to  por- 
tend a  modification  of  some  of  its  anomalies.  It  is  thus  evident  that 
the  law  of  England  and  the  law  courts  are  not  behind  the  times,  but 
adapt  themselves  with  as  much  readiness  as  the  necessarily  conserv- 
ative character  of  law  and  lawyers  allows  to  the  requirements  of  the 
day.  A  capability  of  change  is  perhaps  the  strongest  evidence  of 
vitality. 


CHAPTER    XXV. 

THE    SERVICES. 

Position  of  the  British  Navy  compared  with  that  of  others — Present  Importance 
of  Superior  Organization  and  an  Instructed  Personnel — Training  of  Boys 
and  Seamen — Gunners — Royal  Marines — Naval  Artificers— Education  of 
Officers— Young  Officers  of  the  Present  Day — Higher  Ranks  and  Different 
Branches  of  the  Service — Inner  Life  of  a  Man-of-war — Central  Administra- 
tion— Peculiar  Independence  of  the  Admiralty — Difficulty  of  Organically 
changing  the  British  Army — Efforts  at  Army  Reform — Why  the  General 
Outlines  of  the  Army  must  always  remain  the  same — Chief  Changes  de- 
scribed within  these  Outlines — The  Abolition  of  Purchase  and  Change  in 
the  Prospects  of  Officers — Their  Professional  Improvements  in  Recent 
Years — Short  Service — The  Formation  of  the  Soldier — Progress  of  the 
Recruit — Drill,  Discipline,  Crimes,  Penalties,  and  Rewards — Insufficiency 
of  Regular  Army — Supplemented  by  Militia  and  Volunteers — Militia  and 
Volunteers  described. 

THE  relations  in  which  England,  as  the  mistress  of  a  powerful 
navy,  stands  to  the  other  maritime  Powers  of  the  world  are 
marked  by  certain  peculiarities.  Owing  to  the  insular  position  of 
the  United  Kingdom,  a  fleet  is  naturally  regarded  as  the  firsi  and 
most  important  line  of  defense  against  aggression.  In  Continental 
states,  on  the  other  hand,  an  army  affords  the  best  security  against 
the  attempts  of  hostile  neighbors.  A  threat  of  war  turns  the 
thoughts  of  Englishmen  to  the  condition  of  the  navy  which  an 
enemy  must  first  overcome  before  he  can  throw  an  expedition  upon 
our  shores;  on  the  Continent  it  at  once  directs  attention  to  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  land  forces  to  prevent  a  violation  of  the  territory. 
Most  Continental  nations  will  have  a  neutral  state,  upon  some  divi- 
sion of  then-  frontier,  through  which,  in  the  present  highly-advanced 
condition  of  land  communications,  trade,  though  somewhal  turned 
aside  from  its  habitual  channels,  may  still  puss  unmolesl  I.  The 
external  trade  of  an  island  must,  in  the  nature  of  things  be  carried 
on  by  sea,  and  only  a  naval  force  can  guarantee  it  against  blockade. 
Where,  as  in  our  own  case,  the  insular  people  are  their  own  carriers, 


432  ENGLAND. 

the  necessity  in  war  to  protect  private  property  at  sea  leads  at  once 
to  an  addition  to  the  functions  of  the  navy.  If  we  add  to  this  the 
consideration  of  the  vast  extent  of  our  transmarine  dominions,  pro- 
tected chiefly,  if  not  solely,  by  the  maritime  power  of  the  mother 
country,  and  the  important  fact  that  year  by  year  we  are  more  de- 
pendent upon  foreign  imports  for  our  food — it  will  be  easy  to  per- 
ceive how  much  more  extensive  are  the  duties  of  our  navy  than 
those  of  the  fleets  of  the  other  great  European  powers. 

Progress  in  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  the  cosmopolitan  charac- 
ter of  modern  commerce,  have  practically  insured  to  all  maritime 
states  an  equality  in  excellence  of  materiel.  If  the  natural  resources 
of  a  country  do  not  suffice  for,  or  the  skill  of  its  artificers  prove  un- 
equal to,  the  production  of  the  ships  and  equipment  now  necessary 
in  an  efficient  fleet,  recourse  may  be  had  to  foreign  factories  and 
building-yards.  If  the  money  only  can  be  provided,  as  it,  as  a  rule, 
seems  it  can  be,  any  country  with  a  coast  may  have  at  least  the  in- 
animate components  of  a  navy.  The  armor-clad  ships  of  Turkey, 
for  instance,  form  a  squadron  only  surpassed,  in  number  and  quality, 
by  those  of  two  other  Powers.  The  chief  superiority  of  our  own 
country,  therefore,  lies  in  the  nautical  aptitude  of  the  population; 
and,  as  might  be  expected,  to  develop  this  advantage  to  the  fullest 
extent  possible,  by  the  careful  organization  and  systematic  training 
of  the  personnel,  is  a  prominent  feature  of  the  naval  policy  of  the 
present  day. 

Maritime  tastes  prevail  in  all  classes.  To  go  to  sea  is,  at  one 
time  or  other,  the  desire  of  nearly  every  English  boy.  By  a  politic 
arrangement  the  State  takes  advantage  of  this  wide-spread  feeling. 
Recruits  present  themselves  in  greater  numbers  than  are  required; 
ships  can  be  easily  manned;  habits  of  discipline  and  a  knowledge 
of  the  duties  that  have  to  be  performed  are  early  instilled  into  the 
mind  of  the  young  sailor;  and  hundreds  of  lads  are  provided  with 
the  means  of  gaining  an  honorable  livelihood.  The  advantages 
which  a  naval  career  offers  to  a  boy  are  sufficiently  great  to  attract 
to  the  service  the  sons  of  many  parents  considerably  above  the  low- 
est class.  The  limits  of  age  on  entering  the  service — from  fifteen 
to  sixteen  and  a  half — and  the  educational  and  physical  tests  are 
sufficient  indication  that  the  boys,  for  the  most  part,  must  have  been 
at  decent  schools  and  have  been  reared  in  comfort.  The  prohibi- 
tion of  the  enrollment  of  vouths  from  reformatories  and  industrial 
schools  guards  them  against  association  with  crime  and  depravity. 
To  the  enrollment  and  engagement  to  remain  in  the  service  for  ten 
years  after  their  eighteenth  birthday,  the  consent  of  their  parents  is 


THE    SERVICES.  433 

necessary;  whilst  provision  is  made  for  a  subsequent  change  in  the 
family  fortunes  by  permitting  the  purchase  of  a  discharge  on  not 
very  onerous  terras. 

The  first  step  in  the  boy's  career  is  embarkation  on  board  a  sfa- 
tionary  training-ship  at  Portsmouth,  or  some  other  southern  port. 
I  His  uniform — supplied  at  his  own  cost,  but  provided  for  to  Borne 
extent  out  of  a  money  grant  subsequently  awarded  for  the  purpose 
■ — is  ready  for  him  in  a  few  days,  and  he  soon  appears  as  a  small, 
but  veritable,  "blue-jacket."  The  course  of  instruction  which  he 
has  to  undergo  is  elaborate  and  exact.  He  begins  by  learning  how 
to  pay  respect  to  his  superiors,  how  to  lash  up  his  hammock,  and 
how  to  fold  up  and  put  away  his  clothes  in  the  sailor's  only  ward- 
robe— his  bag.  His  day  commences  with  washing  the  decks,  and 
his  hours  of  instruction  with  public  prayers  conducted  by  the  chap- 
lain. He  is  taught  to  wash  his  clothes,  and  to  keep  himself  clean  in 
person  and  neat  in  outward  appearance.  Half  his  time  is  devoted 
to  regular  school  work — unless  he  be  qualified  for  the  "upper 
school,"  when  the  school-masters  see  less  of  him — and  half  to  in- 
struction in  a  sailor's  duties.  Rowing,  reefing,  furling,  rigging, 
steering,  sail-making,  are  taught  him  as  soon  as  he  has  mastered 
the  technical  terms  of  the  new  language  which  he  will  have  to  speak. 
Drill  with  guns,  with  rifles,  and  with  cutlasses  goes  on  in  the  inter- 
vals between  other  lessons.  In  summer  every  boy  is  taught  to 
swim. 

The  whole  course  lasts  a  year,  and  at  the  end  of  it  he  becomes 
a  "  1st  class  bo3r,"  and  is  sent  for  a  short  cruise  in  the  Channel  in  a 
training-brig,  where  he  makes  his  earliest  acquaintance  with  blue 
water.  The  school-master  and  the  instructor  follow  him  here;  but 
his  time  is  chiefly  and  properly  taken  up  in  the  practical  work  of 
his  calling.  At  eighteen  he  ceases  to  be  a  boy,  and  is  officially 
raised  to  the  rank  of  a  man  by  being  "rated"  ordinary  seaman. 
His  pay  hitherto  has  been  but  sixpence  and  sevenpence  a  day,  which 
has  gone  principally  to  supply  clothing  and  a  small  allowance  of 
weekly  pocket-money.  The  excellence  of  the  diet  in  the  training- 
ship  frees  him  from  the  necessity  of  spending  any  thing  on  food. 
As  a  man  he  receives  higher  pay,  is  allowed  a  ration  of  grog,  and 
may — if  so  minded — use  tobacco.  Every  man  in  the  navy  is  practi- 
cally drilled  and  instructed  until  his  last  day  afloat;  but  compulsory 
training  in  the  technical  sense  diminishes  considerably  with  man- 
hood,  and  ends  altogether  with  the  final  graduation  as  able  seaman, 
or  A.B. 

The  importance  of  excellence  in  the  practice  of  naval  gunnery 
28 


43J:  ENGLAND. 

in  modern  war-fleets  is  universally  recognized,  and  has  led  to  the 
introduction  of  gunnery-ships,  on  board  which  the  men  who  are  to 
become  seamen-gunners  are  carefully  instructed.  Those  who  join 
them  do  so  voluntarily,  attracted  by  additions  to  their  wages  in 
accordance  with  the  class  of  certificate  gained,  and  other  induce- 
ments, such  as  diminution  in  the  period  of  service  entitling  tliem 
to  a  pension.  The  course  lasts  several  months,  and  includes  drill 
with  great  guns,  with  cutlasses,  in  musketry  firing,  in  the  manage- 
ment of  torpedoes,  and  in  the  evolutions  of  infantry  and  field-artil- 
lery. As  a  fact,  all  the  seamen  of  the  fleet  are  trained  in  thpse 
things,  but  the  instruction  is  more  thorough  and  extended  in  the 
case  of  seanien-gunners.  A  trained  sailor  may  be  reefing  or  furling 
sails  on  Monday,  acting  as  a  rifleman  on  Tuesday,  maneuvering  a 
field-gun  on  Wednesday,  practicing  the  "  cuts  and  guards "  on 
Thursday,  and  be  working  an  eighteen-ton-gun  on  Friday.  A 
gunner  must  not  only  be  conversant  with  the  practical  work  of 
the  various  branches  of  naval  gunnery,  but  must  be  capable  of  in- 
structing others  as  weU.  The  most  promising  men  are  put  through 
a  more  advanced  course  of  instruction  and  become  teachers  them- 
selves, with  the  official  designation  of  Instructors.  The  A.B.  an- 
swers to  the  private  soldier,  and — whether  trained  in  a  gunnery- 
ship  or  not — can  be  advanced  to  higher  grades  as  a  petty  officer. 
He  may  become  coxswain  of  a  boat,  captain  of  a  top,  or  boatswain's 
or  gunner's  mate,  and  thus  obtain  command  over  others,  increased 
pay,  and  the  right  to  wear  a  badge  or  symbol  of  rank  upon  his 
sleeve;  or  he  may  reach  the  highest  position  open  to  a  'fore-mast 
hand — the  grade  of  boatswain  or  gunner. 

The  seamen  proper  fomi  but  a  portion  of  the  crew  of  a  ship. 
There  are  many  other  classes  "  before  the  mast."  Every  vessel  car- 
ries a  considerable  detachment  of  Royal  Marines,  made  up  of  both 
artillerymen  and  infantry,  the  former  being  selected  from  the  latter, 
and  subjected  to  a  special  training.  These  men  are  enlisted  on 
terms  somewhat  different  from  those  which  obtain  in  the  army  of 
the  hue.  They  enlist  for  long  service,  whilst  the  men  of  the  army 
have  superior  advantages  in  the  way  of  pay,  pension,  and  promo- 
tion from  the  ranks.  Though  the  requirements  in  height  and  chest 
measurement  for  the  marines,  exceed  those  for  army  recruits,  there 
is  never  any  difficulty  in  obtaining  men;  in  fact,  it  has  been  neces- 
sary upon  several  occasions  to  raise  the  standard  in  order  to  keep 
the  force  within  the  established  strength.  The  marines  are  distrib- 
uted in  divisions  at  the  principal  naval  ports.  They  supply  the 
guards  and  sentries  on  board,  and  some  few  of  them  are  permitted 


THE   services.  I:;.-, 

to  act  as  servants  to  the  officers.  Together  with  the  blue-jackets 
they  man  the  guns,  and  in  all  duties— which  do  not  require  their 

presence  aloft  or  at  the  oars — they  share  equally  with  the  sailors. 
Their  training,  which,  as  they  enter  the  service  as  grown  men.  is 
shorter  than  that  of  their  shipmates,  is  conducted  al  their  own 
head-quarters,  and  is  so  perfect  and  carefully  supervised  that,  in 

spite  of  long  absences  from  a  parade  ground,  their  qualities  as  sol- 
diers are  second  to  those  of  none  in  the  world.  Tluir  discipline  is 
admirable,  and  their  fidelity  so  well  established  as  to  have  almost 
passed  into  a  proverb.  The  position  of  the  corps  is  not  so  good  as 
its  deserts;  for,  owing  to  long  service  enlistment  and  the  require- 
ments of  the  authorities,  they  form  a  corps  d'ilite.  Of  late  years, 
however,  the  sailor  has  been  more  and  more  trained  and  drilled  a.s 
if  it  were  intended  that  he  should  be  able  to  perform  the  duties  of 
a  soldier.  His  military  education  naturally  absorbs  a  good  deal 
of  his  time;  and  it  is  a  common  cause  of  complaint  amongst  officers 
of  the  marines  that  then-  men  are  taken  from  legitimate  duties  to 
perform  others  and  subordinate  ones  rightly  the  work  of  seamen. 
Besides  there  are  stokers  for  the  work  of  the  engine-room  and 
stokehole,  and  endless  varieties  of  artificers.  Nor  is  a  crew  com- 
plete which  has  not  on  its  lists  carpenters,  calkers,  shipwrights, 
blacksmiths,  armorers,  and  painters,  each  with  their  separate  grades; 
whilst  in  large  ships  are  also  to  be  found  butchers,  tinsmiths,  coop- 
ers, and  lamp-trimmers.  Vessels  of  all  classes  carry  stewards,  cooks, 
sick -berth  attendants  and  servants. 

The  officers  who  have  to  command  these  men  begin  their  career 
at  an  earlier  age  than  the  "'fore-mast  hands."  To  become  a  naval 
cadet  a  boy  must  be  more  than  twelve  and  less  than  thirteen  years 
and  a  half  old.  Those  who  have  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  cadetship 
have  to  pass  an  examination  for  school  subjects,  held  twice  a  year, 
before  they  can  be  appointed  to  the  officers'  school-ship,  the  Britan- 
nia. It  is  also  necessary  to  pass  an  examination  in  physical  qualifi- 
cations before  a  board  of  medical  men.  The  duration  of  the  school- 
ing in  the  Britannia  is  two  years;  the  cadet  being  instructed  chiefly 
in  the  theoretical  subjects,  with  which  he  must  become  conversant 
before  he  can  gain  a  correct  knowledge  of  the  duties  of  his  prof 
sion.  The  education  is  to  a  great  extent  mathematical,  and  is  alm<  si 
purely  scholastic,  in  order  that  the  withdrawal  of  boys  at  so  ten- 
der an  age  from  the  usual  studies  of  persons  of  their  class  in  life 
may  be  in  some  measure  made  up  to  them.  At  its  conclusion  tl 
are  sent  to  the  larger  of  the  regular  sea-going  ships  of  the  fleet, 
which  is  the  real  beginning  of  the  young  officer's  naval  life,     ilis 


436  ENGLAND. 

schooling,  however,  still  continues;  the  naval  instructor — an  officer 
appointed  specially  for  the  purpose — claims  him  for  a  great  part 
of  the  day,  the  desk  being  really  the  true  scene  of  the  modern 
midshipman's  labors.  Examinations  are  frequent,  and  future  ad- 
vancement in  the  service  depends  on  success  in  them.  It  will  there- 
fore be  readily  understood  froni  this  that  the  "middies'"  of  the 
day  differ  greatly  from  the  "  reefers"  of  Marryat's  time.  They  are 
school-boys  now  rather  than  officers;  purely  academic  tests  being 
powerful  to  fix  then*  position  in  the  least  academic  of  services.  They 
still  command  boats  and  have  charge  of  tops;  but  the  former  are  too 
often  steam  launches,  and  in  ironclads  the  latter  are  seldom  practi- 
cally used  to  set  or  take  in  sail. 

After  some  four  years  spent  at  sea,  the  passing  of  a  series  of 
examinations  entitles  the  midshipman  to  his  first  commission  as  a 
sub-lieutenant,  and  marks  the  end  of  the  obligatory  status  pup  ill  oris. 
He  may,  when  promoted  to  the  next  rank — that  of  lieutenant — vol- 
untarily undergo  a  course  of  study  in  naval  gunnery,  or  in  torpedo 
science;  or  he  can,  in  any  rank  bearing  a  commission,  study  at 
the  college  at  Greenwich.  But  the  end  of  his  midshipman's  term 
and  its  several  "  final  "  examinations  terminate  his  school-boy  days. 
Promotion  to  a  lieutenancy  goes  practically  by  seniority,  and  should 
be  attained  about  the  twenty-fourth  year;  to  commander,  and  after- 
wards to  captain,  it  is  by  selection;  to  the  various  grades  of  flag- 
officers,  strictly  by  seniority.  A  man  may  be  a  commander  by  five- 
and-thirtv  or  sooner,  and  a  captain  four  or  five  years  later.  Lar^e 
ships  carry  an  officer  of  each  of  these  ranks,  whilst  small  vessels  with, 
less  than  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  men  are  frequently  in  sole 
charge  of  a  commander.  Besides  the  great  body  of  naval  officers, 
there  are  in  the  service  many  branches,  e.  g.,  the  chaplains,  the  in- 
creasingly important  engineers,  the  medical  officers,  the  paymas- 
ters, <£c.  At  least  one  representative  of  every  class  is  to  be  found 
aboard  most  men-of-war.  Indeed,  H.M.  ships  resemble  little  worlds 
in  the  completeness  and  variety  of  the  callings  which  then'  crews 
embrace. 

It  is  when  the  officers  and  men,  of  whom  so  much  has  now 
been  said,  are  brought  together  afloat,  that  the  inner  life  on  board 
ship  may  be  seen  in  the  customs  and  manners  which  prevail  through- 
out the  navy.  The  early  and  thorough  cleansing  of  every  part  of  the 
ship,  which  begins  the  day;  the  polishing  and  beautifying  all  within 
and  without  which  follows;  the  forenoons  and  afternoons  given  up  to 
drill  and  instruction;  the  busy  work  of  the  carpenters,  blacksmiths, 
sail-makers,  and  other  artificers;  the  whirr  of  the  lathe  of  the  engi- 


THE    SERVICES.  117 

neers — all  these  are  reproduced  throughout  hundreds  of  ships  in  all 

parts  of  the  world.  At  oue  time  a  row  of  men  are  standing  ready 
for  inspection  before  having  leave  or  ''liberty"  to  go  on  shore.  At 
another,  a  less  eager  rank  is  drawn  up  before  the  commander,  or 
senior  lieutenant  (the   second  in  command,  by  whom  the  internal 

economy  is  supervised),  awaiting  trial  for  small  offenses.  Red- 
coated  sentries  pace  to  and  fro;  the  captain  quits  or  returns  to  the 
ship  amid  a  shrill  nourish  of  whistles;  the  doctors  inspect  their  pa- 
tients in  the  hospitals,  or  "sick-bay."  The  working  hours  may  be 
said.to  end  after  the  early  supper  of  the  men  at  half-past  four  is  fin- 
ished, when  the  long-wished-for  pipe  may  be  smoked.  As  the  bells 
strike  the  hour  the  watch  is  called.  The  pipe  of  the  boatswain's 
mate  conveys  orders  given  by  the  ever-present  lieutenant  of  the 
watch.  The  whole  busy  scene  of  ship  life  is  intended  as  a  prepa- 
ration for  war,  and  the  steady  and  continuous  instruction  given 
has  provided  the  fleet  of  the  country  with  a  class  of  "trained  cut- 
lasses "  to  which  even  the  "  educated  bayonets  "  of  Prussia  are  not 
superior. 

The  central  government  of  the  naval  service  resides  at  the  A<1- 
miraltv,  and  is  carried  on  by  a  Board  called  the  Board  of  Admiralty, 

\  the  members  being  styled  "Lords  Commissioners  for  Executing  the 
Office  of  Lord  High  Admiral."  There  are  five  members  of  the 
Board,  namely: — The  First  Lord,  who  is  a  member  of  the  Cabinet, 
and  four  assistant  Commissioners.  To  the  First  Lord  is  intrusted 
the  general  supervision,  the  control,  in  great  measure,  of  the  naval 
policy  of  the  country,  and  the  appointment  of  officers  to  high  com- 
mands. His  power  over  his  colleagues  is  practically  supreme,  but 
in  the  division  of  labor  amongst  them  these  important  matters  as 
a  rule  fall  to  him.     Next  come  three  Naval  Lords,  known  as  the 

r  Senior  Naval  Lord,  Third  Lord,  and  Junior  Naval  Lord,  of  whom 
the  first  superintends  the  discipline  of  the  fleet,  the  Third  Lord 
attends  to  construction  and  the  dockyards,  and  the  Junior  Na- 
val Lord  to  victualing  and  transport.  The  fifth  member  of  the 
Board  is  the  Civil  Lord,  who  attends  to  finance.     Secretaries  take 

i  other  duties,  and  the  Controller — the  greatest  officer  of  the  navy 
who  has  not  a  seat  at  the  Board — has  care  of  the  materiel  and 
armament. 

In  the  discharge  of  his  important  duties  he  has  to  approve 
designs  of  ships,  armored  and  unarmored — from  the  turret-ship 
carrying  guns  weighing  eighty  tons,  and  armor  twenty-four  inches 
thick,  to  the  gun-boat  not  much  bigger  than  a  Cowes  yacht.  With 
his  department  rests  the  decision  as  to  the  weapons  to  be  carrie  1; 


438  ENGLAND. 

the  size  and  position  of  the  guns,  and  of  the  new  and  important 
weapon — the  torpedo.  His  relations  with  the  dockyards — the  vast 
establishments  in  which  ships  are  built  or  repaired — are  naturally  in- 
timate. The  dockyards  represent,  to  some  extent,  outlying  branches 
of  his  great  department,  and  have  their  off-shoots  at  many  places, 
thousands  of  miles  off,  in  our  colonial  dependencies.  In  the  same 
way  the  victualing-yards,  or  establishments  for  supplying  the  fleet 
with  food  and  other  necessaries,  are  distributed  about  the  world. 
The  Admiralty,  as  head  of  the  navy,  enjoys  a  curious  constitutional 
independence;  it  can  appoint  officers  independently  of  the  Sover- 
eign's sign-manual;  its  Mutiny  Act — the  Naval  Discipline  Act — does 
not  require  renewal.  Another  peculiarity  is  the  method  of  voting 
the  estimates.  In  the  army  the  number  of  men  and  the  charges  for 
pay  and  maintenance  are  made  the  subject  of  votes.  In  the  navy 
the  wages  only  for  so  many  men  and  boys  are  voted.  In  fact,  though 
many  of  its  privileges  have  been  abolished  or  exchanged,  the  Admi- 
ralty still  occupies  a  unique  position  amongst  the  great  departments 
of  the  State.* 

The  British  army  of  to-day  may  be  compared  to  an- old-fashioned 
house  in  one  of  the  principal  London  thoroughfares,  which  has  been 
refronted  and  redecorated  to  meet  the  imperious  needs  of  modern 
progress.  Till  the  portals  have  been  passed  no  one  would  recognize 
the  dwelling.  Ouside,  the  architect,  lavish  with  plate-glass,  with 
stone  mullions  and  crimson  bricks,  has  worked  wonders;  but  he  has 
not  been  equally  successful  within.  All  his  efforts  to  recast  the 
interior  of  the  house  and  lay  it  out  afresh  have  been  at  best  half 
failures.  He  has  thrown  down  partitions,  altered  levels,  added  here 
and  rebuilt  there;  but  his  difficulties  were  too  great  to  be  completely 
surmounted,  and  everywhere  the  old  character  of  the  place  crops  up 
irrepressibly.  Great  structural  changes  have  been  impracticable; 
conflicting  interests  and  vested  rights,  questions  of  free  access, 
party-walls  and  light  impeded,  have  tied  his  hands.  He  has  been 
forbidden  to  increase  the  limits  of  the  edifice,  which  must  still  be 
contained  within  its  old  four  walls.  Consequently,  there  are  still 
low  ceilings,  narrow  corridors  leading  to  culs-de-sac,  curious  corners 
where  the  daylight  cannot  penetrate,  and  where  the  dust  will  still 
gather  in  spite  of  new  brooms.     Nothing  better,  indeed,  could  be 

*  The  numbers  provided  for  in  the  last  naval  estimates  are  as  follows: — For 
the  fleet — Seamen,  34,100;  boys,  0,300;  marines  afloat,  7,000;  marines  ashore, 
7,000.  For  the  coastguard — Afloat  (included  with  fleet);  on  shore,  officers  and 
men,  4,300;  Indian  service,  1,300.  Total,  60,000.  Ships  and  vessels  of  all 
sorts,  249. 


THE    SERVICES.  439 

done,  at  least  until  the  advent  of  a  general  conflagration,  an  (.•nth- 
quake,  or  some  abnormal  cataclysm  which,  spreading  ruin  and  des- 
olation around,  shall  leave  the  site  unencumbered  Eor  the  erection  of 
another  mansion,  new,  from  basement  to  roof-tree,  and  construe     I 

from  first  to  last  on  entirely  different  lines. 

It  is  precisely  the  same  with  our  army.     The  necesi 
thorough  reconstitution   and   reform  has   long-   been  admitted   on 
every  side,  and  statesmen,  soldiers,  officials,  experts  of  every  b 
have  had  a  hand  to  the  job.     The  War  Office  has  proved  a   sure 
avenue  to  the  jDeerage  for  cabinet  ministers,  who,  recognizing 
importance  of  the  work,  have  strenuously  put  their  shoulder  to  the 
wheel.     A  host  of  specialists,  some  merely  outsiders,  others  in  1 
j>lace  at  the  War  Office  and  on  the  staff,  have  assisted  in  the  v.  >rk 
of  revision,  recommendation,  and  substitution:  yet  in  spite  of  the 
efforts  of  all,  it  is  only  upon  the  surface,  only  in  its  external  aspect, 
not  in  its  internal  framework  and  principal  lines,  that  the  army  has 
been  changed. 

There  are,  in  fact,  certain  seemingly  inalienable  peculiarities 
which  continually  run  counter  to  drastic  reform.  Complications 
crop  up  at  every  turn;  grave  constitutional  and  political  questions 
are  intimately  connected  with  the  whole  subject.  The  responsi- 
bilities of  the  most  extensive  and  varied  empire  which  the  world 
ever  knew,  intensify  a  thousand-fold  the  difficulties  of  army  admin- 
istration and  organization.  The  usual  formula,  that  liberties  are 
in  danger,  is  echoed  on  every  side  at  the  first  hint  of  the  possible 
necessity  for  universal  service.  While  parliamentary  government 
remains  what  it  is,  the  exigencies  of  "  party "  warfare  will  alv, 
override  the  obvious  advantages  of  military  efficiency  and  thorough 
preparedness  for  war.  The  same  principle  of  government  carries 
with  it  the  inevitable  consequence  that  the  supreme  head  of  the 
army  must  be  a  civilian  statesman.  Even  if  there  were  not  an 
invincible  national  repugnance  to  the  mere  name  of  "conscription," 
the  varied  character  of  the  service  which  our  soldiers  are  called 
upon  to  perform,  often  in  lethal  climates,  exiled  and  at  a  distance 
from  home,  would  render  compulsory  service  practically  impossible 
with  us.  We  alone  among  great  European  Powers  must  continue, 
therefore,  to  recruit  our  army  by  voluntary  enlistments,  accepting 
the  pecuniary  burden  which  it  entails — a  tax,  however,  which  ends 
with  the  money  spent,  and  does  not,  as  in  Germany  and  elsewhere, 
seriously  sap  the  national  prosperity  and  progress.  Again,  it  is 
this  unalterable  rule  of  voluntary  service  which  fixes  the  quality 
and  status  of  the  men  who  constitute  the  rank  and  file.     These  can- 


440  ENGLAND. 

not,  as  in  countries  where  all  classes  alike  supply  their  quota,  be 
drawn  from  more  than  one  source  of  supply.  This  source,  with  us, 
must  be  the  market  for  unskilled  labor,  in  which  alone  Government 
competes  against  other  employers  for  the  thews  and  muscles  it  re- 
quires. Finally,  the  peculiar  fascinations  which  the  profession  of 
arms  seems  to  possess  for  the  sons  of  the  aristocracy  and  of  well-to- 
do  j^eople  of  the  upper  and  middle  classes  provide  an  inexhaustible 
contingent  of  candidates  for  commissions.  There  is  an  increase 
rather  than  a  diminution  in  the  supply,  and  this  in  spite  of  changes 
which  might  have  been  thought  to  reduce  appreciably  the  attrac- 
tions of  the  military  career.  Notwithstanding  the  abolition  of  pur- 
chase, the  difficulties  thrown  in  the  way  of  exchanges  from  regiment 
to  regiment  to  suit  individual  convenience,  and  the  prospect  of  stag- 
nation in  promotion  which  can  be  relieved  only  at  the  cost  of  much 
hardship,  army  officers  as  a  body  are  and  will  continue  to  be  of  the 
class  of  gentlemen  bred  and  born. 

But  although  the  general  outlines  and  principal  conditions  of 
military  service  remain  much  what  they  were  a  hundred  years  ago, 
it  cannot  be  denied  that  there  have  been  recently  great  changes  and 
improvements  in  matters  of  detail.  Of  these  the  most  noticeable 
are  (1)  the  more  thorough  consolidation  of  the  governing  bodies, 
which  has  been  effected  through  the  removal  of  the  Horse  Guards' 
staff  from  Whitehall  to  the  War  Office;  (2)  the  abolition  of  purchase 
among  officers  and  the  concurrent,  but  not  necessarily,  consequent 
increase  of  professional  knowledge  and  acquirements  among  them; 
(3)  the  complete  adoption  of  the  principle  of  short  enlistments  for 
the  rank  and  file;  (4)  a  general  careful  revision  of  the  training,  con- 
stitution, equipment,  and  weapons  of  the  three  arms. 

I.  Before  the  Crimean  campaign  there  was  practically  no  single 
great  office  charged  with  the  administration  of  the  army  as  a  whole. 
A  number  of  small  independent  jurisdictions  controlled  the  several 
branches,  working  in  harmony  or  not,  according  to  the  chances  of 
the  case,  but  imperfectly  impressed  with  their  true  functions  or  the 
importance  of  maintaining  the  army  itself  in  a  high  state  of  effi- 
ciency. The  results  of  this  pernicious  want  of  one  unified  system 
were  painfully  apparent  in  the  terrible  chaos  which  promptly  su- 
pervened during  our  war  with  Russia,  and  one  of  the  first  efforts 
towards  reform  was  in  administration.  The  creation  of  a  new  Sec- 
retary of  State  specially  appointed  "  for  war  "  was  followed  by  nu- 
merous alterations  in  names,  offices,  and  business  performed,  but 
all  having  the  same  object  of  concentrating  authority  under  one 
head.     The  edifice  was  not  crowned  until  the  commander-in-chief 


THE    SERVICES.  Ill 

was  forcibly  moved  from  Whitehall.  The  Duke  of  Cambridge  had 
always  cheerfully  recognized  the  power  and  superiority  of  the  8 
retary  of  State  as  the  official  really  responsible  to  the  Queen  and 
Parliament;  but  this  subordination  continued  to  be  in  a  measure 
misunderstood  so  long  as  the  two  remained  under  differenl  roofs 
and,  at  least  in  appearance,  independent  of  each  other.  Now  the 
fusion  is  complete  and  real.  The  Secretary  of  State  for  War  stands 
next  the  Sovereign,  and  holds  by  delegation  the  supreme  authorily 
and  command.  Upon  his  staff  are  three  great  officers.  Two  of 
these  are  parliamentary  officials  having  seats  in  the  House,  and 
charged,  respectively,  with  the  departments  of  supply  of  stores,  and 
finance;  the  third  is  the  Field-Marshal  Commanding-in-Chicf,  who 
exercises  the  purely  military  functions.  The  measures  by  which 
this  consolidation  was  brought  about  did  not  at  first  find  favor  with 
all  concerned;  but  the  necessity  was  indisputable,  and  now  that 
some  six  or  seven  years  have  elapsed,  the  system  has  been  accepted 
and  acquiesced  hi  with  the  best  grace  in  the  world.  The  fact  is,  the 
introduction  into  the  War  Office  of  a  large  leaven  of  the  military 
element  has  tended  to  increase  the  dignity  and  influence  of  the 
Commander-in-Chief.  Clerkdom  has  in  a  measure  succumbed.  The 
soldiers,  although  nominally  more  subordinated,  are  actually  more 
powerful  now  when  they  are  on  the  spot,  and  their  voices  can  be 
more  quickly  heard,  than  when  they  transacted  their  business  from 
a  distance  by  communications  on  paper,  or  by  visits  which  were 
formal  and  rare. 

II.  The  precise  aims  and  objects  which  the  Government  of  the 

\  day  had  in  view  when  it  proposed  to  abolish  the  long-established 
practice  of  buying  and  selling  commissions  hi  the  army  will  never 
perhaps  be  accurately  known.  The  occasion  was  one  of  general  ex- 
citement, and  nothing  less  than  some  large  scheme  of  military  reor- 
ganization and  reform,  or  the  semblance  of  it,  would  have  satisfied 
the  public  mind.  Purchase  being  theoretically  quite  indefensible, 
nothing  was  easier  than  to  charge  it  with  the  Haws  and  failures  of 
the  whole  system.  It  was  said  to  impede  and  interfere  with  any  ar- 
rangements for  increasing  the  symmetry  and  efficiency  of  the  ser- 
vice; the  vested  rights  of  the  officers  stood  continually  in  the  way. 
If  a  man  had  purchased  his  promotion,  it  was  almost  impossible 
to  remove  him,  however  incompetent,  from  regimental  command. 
Merit  was  repeatedly  overlooked;  promotion  following  not  &tn 
but  the  length  of  a  man's  purse.  These  and  other  strong  reasons 
sufficiently  justified  the  attack  made  upon  an  institution  which 
might  be  time-honored,  but  which  on  the  face  of  it  had  little  to 


442  ENGLAND. 

recommend,  it.  But  they  did  not  easily  overbear  the  opposition 
which  the  proposal  encountered  from  the  first.  There  were  niany 
practical  minds  who,  while  they  admitted  the  disadvantages  of  pur- 
chase, upheld  it  on  grounds  of  its  economy  and  convenience.  It 
was  a  system  by  which  a  large  body  of  servants  of  the  Crown  pro- 
vided theh  own  pensions  without  costing  the  public  exchequer  a 
penny.  It  secured  a  reasonably  rapid  flow  of  promotion;  and  if,  in 
theory,  it  bore  hardly  upon  some  deserving  officers  who  had  not  the 
means  to  purchase,  matters  righted  themselves  in  the  long  run,  and, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  often  benefited  more  largely  by  the  system 
than  their  comrades  who  paid.  For  the  non-purchase  officer  who 
constantly  gained  promotion  by  seniority  and  other  means,  became 
entitled  to  precisely  the  same  sums  on  retirement  as  the  purchase 
officer,  while  the  constant  movement  of  men  coming  and  going 
pushed  him  steadily  to  the  top  of  the  tree. 

Nevertheless,  although  the  contest  was  fierce  and  protracted, 
purchase  was  definitely  swept  away  in  1871.  In  the  years  which 
have  since  elapsed  there  have  been  many  opportunities  of  testing 
the  wisdom  of  the  change,  although  it  would  be  premature  to  pro- 
nounce as  yet  upon  its  failure  or  success.  Certain  consequences, 
however,  which  are  directly  traceable  to  it  have  already  become 
plainly  apparent.  Chief  among  these  is  the  unsatisfactory  conclu- 
sion that  the  eight  millions  voted  to  "  buy  back  our  army  "  represents 
but  a  fraction  of  the  total  outlay  involved;  promotion  almost  imme- 
diately stagnated,  and  threatened  soon  to  cease  altogether  unless 
some  artificial  means  were  devised  to  quicken  it  and  keep  it  alive. 
This  entailed  an  elaborate  scheme  of  retirements  with  bonuses  and 
pensions  which,  when  in  full  working  order,  will  fall  heavily  upon 
the  public  purse;  while  the  provisions  of  the  warrant  will  not  im- 
probably prove,  in  many  cases,  a  distinct  hardship  to  officers  them- 
selves. The  basis  of  the  new  arrangements  is  that  all  who,  at  a 
certain  age,  have  not  ascended  above  a  certain  grade  shall  be  com- 
pelled to  retire.  In  other  words,  a  captain  who  is  still  a  captain  at 
forty,  a  major  still  a  major  at  forty-seven,  and  so  on  through  the 
various  grades,  must,  although  theh  retardation  will  probably  have 
been  their  misfortune  and  not  theh  fault,  take  their  pensions  and 
retire  jDermanently  from  active  employment.  This  rule  niay  have 
been  a  logical  necessity.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  strong  reasons 
existed  why  this  stagnation  should  be  relieved  by  application  of  the 
scheme  to  other  than  the  very  highest  ranks.  But  the  immediate 
results  of  the  plan  will  be  in  many  cases  hardship  to  individual 
officers  and  to  the  country  at  large,  a  tax  for  pensions  to  men  still 


THE    SERVICES.  \\:\ 

full  of  health  and  eager  for  work.     Nor  must  it  be  ov< 

the  retired  military  officer  forty  years  of  age  has  but  few  a 

of  employment  open  to  him.     It  is  not  easy  to  forecast  the  future  of 

the  pensioned  captains  and  majors  who,  with  a  pittance  of  a  .< 
hundreds  a  year,  are  sent  adrift  from  the  profession  in  which  they 
have  spent  their  best  years.     AVith  an  income  in  itself  insufficient, 
and  unless  they  have  fair  private  means,  no  other  prospects  but 

emigration  or  genteel  poverty,  it  is  already  clear  that  the  te] 

of  the  new  retirement  scheme  is  decidedly  reactionary,  and  that  the 

army  will  now  less  than  ever  be  a  profession  for  poor  men. 

How  far  the  abolition  of  purchase  can  be  credited  with  the  recent 
distinct  improvements  in  the  professional  efficiency  of  the  body  of 
officers  is  another  point  which  cannot  be  exactly  determined.  N  i  > 
doubt,  the  knowledge  that  promotion  can  no  longer  be  purchased, 
but  may  be  determined  by  merit,  has  proved  an  incentive  to  exer- 
tion; although  even  now,  it  is  no  more  certain  that  merit  in  the 
abstract  will  insure  advancement,  than  that  incompetence  will  be  a 
bar  to  high  commands.  But  other  causes  have  also  been  at  work. 
The  i:>resent  generation  has  seen  a  more  wide-spread  development 
of  military  science  than  any  which  preceded  it,  and  the  same  influ- 
ences which  brought  about  German  triumphs  and  French  disasters 
have  been  indirectly,  but  yet  disproportionately,  felt  in  England. 
The  paramount  necessity  for  progressive  improvement  has  been 
impressed  with  irresistible  logic  upon  an  important  section  of  our 
military  officers,  and  these  have,  in  their  turn,  authoritatively,  or  by 
the  more  effective  suasion  of  precept  and  personal  example,  helped 
to  introduce  a  new  tone  throughout  the  service  and  establish  a  new 
order  of  things.  Under  the  present  regime,  military  subjects  are  no 
longer  tabooed,  as  they  once  were  among  military  men.  Military 
literature  finds  a  wide -circle  of  military  readers.  Military  games 
are  played  by  the  dandified  guardsman  or  the  once  professionally 
illiterate  dragoon.  Schools,  classes,  lectures  in  London  and  the 
principal  garrisons  and  canrps  provide  all  ranks  with  abund; 
opportunities  for  self-improvement,  of  which  numbers  gladly  avail 
themselves  to  the  full.  This  marked  and  very  general  change  in 
the  ambitions  and  aptitudes  of  ovu'  military  officers  is  one  of  the 
most  satisfactory  signs  for  the  future  of  our  military  institutions. 
Although  yielding  to  none  in  the  whole  world  in  gallantry  and  de- 
votion when  tried  in  the  hour  of  supreme  danger — it  might  once 
have  been  urged  against  them  that  then-  scientific  . 
were  limited;  that,  beyond  the  perfunctory  discharge  of  routine 
duties,  as  quickly  forgotten  as  the  uniform  coat  was  exchanged 


444  ENGLAND. 

mufti,  they  had  no  claim  to  be  called  soldiers  in  the  modern  sense 
of  the  term.  But  officers  now,  as  a  body,  are  rapidly  escaping  any 
such  reproach.  From  the  moment  the  young  cadet,  released  from 
Sandhurst,  matriculates,  so  to  speak,  at  the  alma  mater  of  his  corps, 
he  is  subjected  to  a  system  of  progress  or  training  which  cannot  fail 
to  perfect  him  in  the  work  he  has  or  will  have  to  do.  He  is  still 
encouraged,  as  of  old,  to  play  games  and  patronize  sport,  to  shoot, 
hunt,  fish,  and  show  his  prowess  in  those  manly  exercises  which  have 
in  times  past  given  English  officers  a  peculiar  advantage  when  sent 
into  the  field.  He  is  still  constantly  reminded  by  the  tone  and  spirit 
of  those  among  whom  he  lives,  and  who  soon  become  his  life-long 
friends,  that  unfailing  courtesy,  a  chivalrous  bearing  and  pleasant 
address,  frank  manliness,  and  straightforward  and  honorable  deal- 
ings with  all  the  world,  are  the  traits  of  "the  officer  and  the  gentle- 
man." This  composite  expression  appears  to  be  in  no  immediate 
danger  of  alteration.  It  was  thought  at  the  time  that  the  action 
of  recent  reforms  woidd  tend  to  lower  appreciably  the  social  status 
of  English  officers  as  a  whole.  But  although  the  expression  "Mr. 
Cardwell's  young  men "  was  for  a  short  period  often  employed  as  a 
term  of  contempt,  it  had  never  real  meaning  or  foundation.  Now, 
from  causes  already  indicated,  the  tendency  is  more  than  ever  to 
fill  our  regiments  with  officers  drawn  exclusively  from  the  moneyed 
classes.  Armies  will  still  be  led  by  the  gentlemen  of  England  as 
of  old;  but  they  will  be  gentlemen  who  can  rely  no  less  on  their 
own  professional  knowledge  than  on  their  personal  qualities,  to  win 
the  esteem  and  respect  of  then-  men. 

III.  Not  less  disruptive  and  drastic  in  character  than  the  changes 
introduced  in  the  prospects  of  officers  were  the  measures  adopted 
about  the  same  time  for  revising  the  conditions  of  service  for  the 
rank  and  file.  The  Enlistment  Act  of  1871  was  a  well-digested 
scheme  for  the  consolidation  of  the  whole  of  our  military  forces. 
The  adoption  of  the  principle  of  enlistment  for  short  periods  of 
service  with  the  colors,  followed  by  a  longer  time  in  a  reserve  pre- 
sumably within  easy  reach,  is  only  of  recent  date,  but  it  has  already 
modified  considerably  the  aspect  and  intrinsic  value  of  the  army  as 
a  whole.  Previous  to  1870  there  had  been  repeated  changes  in  the 
terms  and  conditions  of  service.  Men  had  been  enlisted  for  life, 
for  twenty-one,  for  twelve,  and  last  of  all  for  ten  years.  But  none 
of  these  systems  had  aimed  to  do  more  than  fill  the  ranks.  The 
recruit  who  joined  under  them  served  always  at  head-quarters;  it 
was  not  .incumbent  upon  him,  it  was  not  even  open  to  him,  to  pass 
into  a  reserve  except  under  conditions  which  were  not  sufficiently 


THE    SERVICES.  \  [", 

attractive  to  induce  him  thus  to  become  bound  for  a  further  term. 

\    The  Armv  Enlistment  Act  of  1870,  which  is  now  in  force,  was  a  new 

and  logical  attempt  to  alter  this.     Under  its  provisions  the  recruit  is 

enlisted  for  either  long-  or  short  service.     If  he  chooses  the  Ion 
the  soldier  engages  to  serve  twelve  years  with  the  colors,  and  has 
the  option  of  re-engaging  for  another  term  of  nine  years  at  (lie  end 
of  the  first  period.     For  short  service,  he  engages  to  Berve  six  years 
with  the  colors  and  six  in  the  reserve;  but  at  anytime  aft  ir  three 
years  he  may  be  dismissed  to  the  reserve  with  a  retaining  fee  in 
the  shape  of  a  modicum  of  daily  pay,  which  acts  as  a  lien  upon  him 
to  return  and  complete  the  full  term  should  his  services  under  any 
emergency  be  urgently  required.     No  doubt,  the  intentions  of  the 
framers  of  this  rule  were  excellent;  and  it  is  but  fair  to  admit  that 
so  far  as  the  formation  of  reserves,  which  could  be  promptly  utilized 
and  in  considerable  numbers,  is  concerned,  their  endeavors  have 
been  crowned  with  a  certain  success.     The  ease  and  rapidity  with 
which,  in  spite  of  friction  and  small  flaws  in  administrative  ma- 
chinery, these  reserves  were  mobilized  when  war  with  Russia  was 
imminent  sufficiently  established  the  wisdom  of  the  .system  in  this 
particular  respect.     But  there  are,  on  the  other  hand,  uncomfort- 
able misgivings  that  the  principle  of  short  service  has  tended  to 
alter  greatly  the  physical  character  of  the  army  as  a  whole,  and  in 
a  measure  to  reduce  its  soldierly  efficiency.     The  reserves,  it  is  to 
be  feared,  are  kept  up  at  the  expense  of  the  service  battalions. 
The  latter  have  become  merely  feed-pipes,  so  to  speak,  a  constant 
stream  towards  the  reservoir  of  the  reserve.     The  service  army  is 
always  in  a  fluid  condition;  it  never  crystallizes  and  consolidi 
itself.     The  bronzed  and  bearded  veterans,  the  old  s<  ildiers,  full  of 
the  cunning  of  experience,  the  self-reliant,  full-grown  men  who  won 
I    for  Great  Britain  its  records  of  imperishable  fame,  are  absoli 
wanting  in  our  regiments  of  to-day.     That  the  lads  and  stripli 
who  have  replaced  them  are  animated  by  the  same  spirit  is  prob- 
able enough,  but  they  cannot  be  equal  to  them  in  strength  and 
physique,  nor  are  they  to  be  blamed  if  they  exhibit  unsteadiness  or 
want  of  stamina  when  sorely  tried.     It  is  already  becoming  p] 
and  the  most  recent  experience  in  Zululand  is  a  newer  and  stronger 
proof  of  the  fact,  that  some  modifications  of  the  principle  of  shorl 
service  must  be  immediately  made,  so  as  to  secure  for  every  r< 
mont  a  certain  leaven  of  older  men.     This  may  be  obtained   by 
offering  good  non-commissioned  officers  more  substantial  indu 
ments  to  serve  on  uninterruptedly  for  a  term  of  twenty-one  y< 
and,  secondly,  by  similar  inducements  insuring  that  a  certain  p.    - 


4-16  ENGLAND. 

portion,  say  ten  per  cent.,  of  the  rank  and  file  should  be  composed 
of  old  soldiers.* 

IV.  But  if  nowadays  our  soldiers  are  merely  warriors  in  embryo, 
who  for  the  reasons  just  detailed,  can  neyer  reach  their  full  devel- 
opment, no  pains  have  been  spared  to  carry  their  training  as  far  as 
it  can  go,  to  improye  their  equipment,  and  generally  to  secure  their 
comfort  and  well-being-.  The  life  of  the  recruit,  from  the  moment 
he  takes  the  shilling  until  he  is  dismissed  drill,  fully  proves  this. 
Vhether  picked  up  by  the  recruiting  sergeant  in  metropolitan  pur- 
lieus, whether  drawn  from  agricultural  district  or  busy  manufact- 
uring town,  or  whether  coming  into  barracks  of  his  own  free  will, 
seeking  enrploynient  after  a  run  of  bad  luck  in  other  spheres,  the 
reeruit  is  carefully  protected  and  looked  after  from  the  first.  He 
must  be  sworn  in  and  attested  before  a  magistrate  after  a  certain 
lapse  of  hours,  to  prove  that  he  has  not  been  inveigled  into  enlist- 
ment unawares.  To  secure  his  independence  still  further,  he  joins 
his  depot  or  the  head-quarters  of  the  corps  by  himself,  and  not,  as 
in  times  past,  under  an  escort.  Arrived  at  barracks,  he  undergoes 
a  second  medical  examination,  is  bathed,  clothed  in  fatigue  dress, 
and  handed  over  to  his  "  company  "  sergeant  to  be  lodged  in  a  bar- 
rack-room, made  one  of  a  "mess";  and  within  the  day  is  included 
in  a  squad  of  others  like  himself  about  to  be  initiated  into  the  mys- 
teries of  his  profession.  From  the  goose  step,  the  infantry  recruit 
passes  through  the  "  extension  motions "  to  club-drill,  and  so  on 
through  slow  marching,  marching  in  quick  and  double  time,  to  the 
use  of  his  weapons,  and  then  to  more  intricate  movements  in  com- 
pany and  battalion  drill,  followed  last  of  all  by  careful  instruction  in 
"  loose  order  "  fighting  or  independent  skirmishing.  The  process 
is  naturally  more  intricate  and  lengthened  with  the  cavalry  recruit, 
the  artilleryman,  and  the  engineer.  The  riding-school  is  the  promi- 
nent feature  with  the  first  named,  and  a  source  of  no  little  discom- 
fort to  the  yokel  or  city  vaurien,  who  has  never  before  been  in  a 
saddle.  Cavalry  exercises,  again,  are  difficult  to  master  because  the 
pupil  must  learn  to  handle  not  a  rille  only,  but  a  sword,  carbine, 
pistol,  and  lance.  The  gunner's  training  is  never,  practically,  com- 
pleted; the  horse-artilleryman  must  learn  to  ride  as  well  as  work 
his  guns,  and  the  garrison  gunner  has  an  endless  coiu'se  of  instruc- 

*  A  year  suffices  to  teach  every  thing  to  an  infantry  soldier  in  the  way  of 
drill,  but  six  years  is  only  enough  to  tra'm  him — to  give  him  the  military  in- 
stinct, which  is  so  valuable  in  a  crisis.  Why  should  not  reserves  be  composed 
partly  of  men  of  one  year's  service,  partly  of  men  of  twelve;  the  majority  of 
the  men  in  a  regiment  being  enlisted  for  twelve  years  with  the  colors? 


THE    SERVICES.  |  17 

tion  in  manipulating  the  multitudinous  appliances  and  machinery 
of  modern  ordnance.  The  sapper  or  engineer  begins  with  the 
knowledge  of  some  handicraft  or  trade,  which  is  an  indispensable 
qualification  for  enlistment  into  that  arm;  but  he  also  has  an  inter- 
minable course  of  instruction  in  the  various  processes  which  the 
modern  scientific  soldier  has  at  command.  It  is  on  account  of  i 
time  and  trouble  needed  to  perfect  the  military  education  of  the 
several  arms  that  the  short-service  system,  as  it  exists  in  the  in- 
fantry, has  never  yet  been  extended  to  the  cavalry  and  the  scientific 
corps. 

But  the  education  of  the  young  soldier  is  not  entirety  technical 
and  mechanical.  "While  thus  undergoing-  that  perpetual  repetition 
of  exercises  which  gradually  makes  their  performance  almost  auto- 
matic, he  is  insensibly  subjected  to  the  influences  of  discipline,  and 
almost  impalpably  assimilates  those  notions  of  perfect  obedience  to 
orders,  and  implicit  subordination  of  will,  which,  when  thoroughly 
understood,  makes  an  army,  as  Locke  has  it,  "  a  collection  of  armed 
men  obliged  to  obey  one  man."  According  as  he  submits  to  the 
iron  rule,  grudgingly,  with  a  good  will,  or  not  at  all,  must  his  value 
as  a  soldier  be  measured.  If  he  kick  against  the  pricks,  and  chafe 
at  the  petty  despotism  of  stripling  sergeant  or  callow  corporal,  who 
but  the  day  previous  was  but  a  recruit  like  himself,  he  may  enter 
upon  a  career  of  misconduct,  which,  commencing  in  trifling  laches — 
such  as  short  absences  without  leave,  occasional  resistance  to  author- 
ity— may  .culminate  one  day  in  defiant  conduct  and  desertion  of  the 
colors.  For  each  and  all  of  the  first  named  he  will  have  to  endure 
penalties — such  as  loss  of  pay  and  liberty,  dull  repetitions  of  drill, 
with  possibly  a  short  confinement  to  provost  cells.  If  his  insubor- 
dination go  to  the  length  of  real  violence  he  will  be  tried  by  court- 
martial,  and  may  find  himself  in  prison  for  a  lengthy  term,  as  he 
will  assuredly  do  should  his  desertion  end,  as  it  very  often  but,  un- 
happily, not  always  ends,  in  detection  and  recapture.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  well-conducted  soldier,  save  and  except  for  a  more  or  less 
constant  ennui,  born  of  the  narrow  and  objectless  life  he  leads,  may 
pass  his  days  in  comparative  comfort  and  freedom  from  care.  Ho 
is  relieved  of  all  responsibilities  of  maintenance,  is  fed,  lod 
clothed,  with  the  most  punctilious  attention  to  his  wants  and  re- 
quirements. Officers  inspect  his  food,  his  barrack-rooms,  doctors 
prescribe  for  him  if  his  finger  aches,  he  has  "his  rights,"  as  he  calls 
them,  and  may  complain  whenever  he  feels  aggrieved  to  the  highest 
authority.  The  sum  of  2d.  a  day  is  placed  to  his  credit  under  the 
name  of  deferred  pay,  so  that  when  he  obtains  his  discharge  he  m 


448  ENGLAND. 

not  be  without  funds  with  which  to  start  in  his  old  trade,  or  on 
which  he  can  exist  till  he  finds  an  opening-  in  civil  life.  But  for 
occasional  exile  and  the  somewhat  remote  responsibility  of  being 
called  upon  to  risk  his  life  for  his  country,  the  private  soldier,  in 
the  society  of  congenial  companions,  and  with  just  enough  exercise 
to  keep  himself  in  health,  is  perhaps  more  of  a  gentleman  at  large 
than  any  other  member  of  the  working  community. 

Were  it  not  for  their  rawness  and  crudity,  no  grave  fault  could 
be  found  with  the  rank  and  file  of  by  far  the  larger  portion  of  our 
regular  army.  Our  infantry  soldiers  are  armed  with  an  admirable 
breech-loader,  which  they  are  taught  to  handle  with  skill  and  effect. 
The  cavalry  are  well  mounted  and  fairly  equipped,  although  there 
is  room  for  improvement  still,  in  weapons  and  gear,  in  organization 
and  tactics,  whether  for  man  or  horse.  As  for  the  artillerv  and  en- 
gineers,  they  may  compare  with  advantage  with  any  in  Europe. 
The  intelligence  of  our  officers  and  their  good  qualities  have  been 
already  adverted  to,  while  the  action  of  those  in  authority  and  in 
the  superior  grades,  in  raising  the  level  of  excellence,  is  an  exceed- 
ingly hopeful  sign  for  the  future  of  our  army.  Yet  one  serious  de- 
fect remains,  and  is  likely  to  remain  unremedied  until  some  almost 
irreparable  disaster  overtakes  us.  This  is  the  insufficiency  of  our 
regular  forces,  all  told,  for  the  services  they  may  be  called  irpon  to 

/  perform.  What  with  the  demands  made  by  India,  the  Crown  col- 
onies, and  occasional  savage  wars  in  possessions  beyond  the  seas, 
our  regular  army  is  always  broken  up  into  fractions  and  distributed 
over  the  face  of  the  earth.*  The  balance  available  for  service  with- 
in the  United  Kingdom,  as  garrison  and  safeguard  against  foreign 
attack,  is  altogether  inadequate  in  view  of  the  mammoth  armies 
which  our  neighbors  control;  nor  is  the  common  explanation  that 
our  navy  is  oiti-  first  line  of  defense  sufficient  to  set  all  doubts  at 
rest.  This  is  plainly  shown  by  our  consistent  efforts  to  organize 
citizen  forces  to  supplement  our  home  army  should  occasion  arise. 

I  Of  these,  the  first,  the  militia,  is  an  institution  practically  coeval 
with  the  nation,  which  bases  its  right  to  exist  upon  the  claim  the 
State  has  upon  every  citizen  to  serve  in  defense  of  his  health  and 

*  The  army  localization  scheme  may  also  require  amendment.  As  matters 
are,  it  is  only  the  depot  which  is  localized,  while  the  regiment  is  probahly  never 
quartered  in  its  district.  The  mobilization  scheme  for  home  defense  is  antago- 
nistic to  localization,  while  a  mobilization  scheme  for  foreign  service  does  not 
exist.  Lastly,  when  regiments  are  required  to  go  on  foreign  service  they  have, 
as  matters  are,  to  be  made  up  from  drafts  from  possibly  half  a  dozen  other 
regiments. 


THE    SERVICES.  419 

home;  the  second — the  volunteers — is  an  admirable  exponent  of  tho 
spirit  and  martial  enterprise  of  the  nation  at  Lar 

The  loyalty  of  the  militia  to  the  State  rather  than  to  the  individ- 
ual has  always  been  marked,  so  much  so  that  at  one  period  of  our 
history  it  was  relied  upon  as  the  most  effectual  safeguard  of  the  lib- 
erties of  the  people  against  the  menace  of  a  standing  army.  li  was 
recruited  bv  ballot,  and  though  this  method  has  now  fallen  into  abey- 
ance,  the  statutory  power  to  enforce  it  still  remains.  It  is  perhaps 
needless  to  remark  that  any  attempt  to  carry  it  into  effect  would,  in 
the  present  state  of  public  opinion,  lead  to  determined  resistance. 

/  Nevertheless,  the  ballot  remains  as  a  last  resource  in  a  time  of  na- 
tional emergency.  Time  was  when  the  militia  as  an  element  of  mili- 
tary strength  was  somewhat  underestimated.  For  numbers  of  years 
it  was  never  called  out,  and  its  existence  was  almost  forgotten.  Then 
after  it  had  done  good  service,  as  during  the  Crimean  war  and  In- 
dian Mutiny,  it  was  long  subordinated  to  the  volunteers.  It  has, 
however,  regained  its  proper  place  in  public  esteem,  and  is  now 
closely  interwoven  with  the  whole  scheme  of  military  organization 
for  purposes  of  recruiting;  militia  regiments  being  affiliated  to  cer- 
tain line  regiments,  to  which  they  act  as  supports  and  reserves. 
More  careful  supervision  and  a  change  in  the  system  of  officering, 
with  longer  trainings  and  more  frequent  practice  in  association  with 
other  troops,  have  in  recent  years  considerably  developed  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  whole  force.     As  for  the  volunteers,  their  wonderful 

I  vitality,  in  spite  of  snubs  and  sneers,  accompanied  not  unfrequently 
by  contemptuous  distrustfulness  as  to  their  real  value  in  time  of 
need,  still  maintains  their  prestige.  The  volunteer  movement  wits 
the  natural  outcome  of  the  wave  of  military  enthusiasm  which  swept 
over  the  land  in  1859.  Many  causes  had  been  working  upon  the  na- 
tional spirit.  The  Crimean  war  and  the  Indian  Mutiny  had  devel- 
oped rather  than  diminished  our  offensive  strength,  but  it  was  at 
the  cost  of  our  defensive  resources.  The  militia  had  been  call  I 
upon,  and  had  responded  well;  but  even  of  militia  we  had  too  few. 
It  was  at  this  juncture  that  the  apparently  aggressive  policy  of 
Emperor  Napoleon  III.  led  people  to  think  once  more  of  the  prox- 
imity of  France  to  our  own  shores,  and  gave  rise  to  rumorSj  intan- 
gible enough,  but  widely  circulated  and  believed,  that  an  invasion 
of  England  was  not  an  impossible  contingency.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  volunteers  were  very  much  in  earnest,  and,  as  might  have 
been  predicted  of  the  stubborn  national  character,  the  only  result  of 
the  ridicule  and  satire  expended  upon  them  was  to  intensify  their 
perseverance  and  confirm  their  resolution.     They  are  now  excellent 

29 


450  ENGLAND. 

soldiers,  in  some  points  superior  to  regulars  or  militia;  they  are 
mostly  expert  marksmen,  and  they  exhibit  a  high  degiee  of  intelli- 
gence, being  generally  recruited  from  the  educated  classes.  The 
defective  arrangements  for  their  equipment  upon  a  war  footing, 
and  for  the  practice  of  military  exercises,  are  the  great  faults  of  the 
system.  In  the  present  state  of  our  general  military  organization, 
however,  it  is  not  quite  clear  whether,  in  case  of  invasion,  the  vol- 
unteers would  be  much  worse  off  than  the  regular  troops  as  far  as 
mobilization  is  concerned.  In  any  case,  it  is  a  great  point  gained 
to  have  the  men;  and  though,  with  regard  to  the  status  of  the  vol- 
unteer force  anomalies  at  present  exist  which  woidd  not  be  toler- 
ated in  Continental  armies,  it  forms  an  item  of  our  defensive,  and 
presumptively  of  our  offensive,  strength  which  no  Continental  critic 
attempts  to  ignore.  In  round  numbers  the  strength  of  the  force  is 
290,000  men,  besides  half  a  million  more  or  less  who  have  passed 
through  its  ranks. 

In  an  appendix  will  be  found  some  information  on  the  subjects  of 
the  reserves,  the  staff,  the  strength  of  the  army,  and  the  equipments. 


APPENDIX. 

The  Reserves. — The  first-class  army  reserve  is  composed  of  men  who  have 
served  in  the  ranks.  Short  service  and  voluntary  enlistment  necessitated  an 
arrangement  of  this  sort.  After  a  minimum  service  of  three  years  men  may 
pass  into  the  reserve,  and  are  liable  to  be  called  out  in  case  of  an  emergency 
arising  during  the  period  fixed  for  their  service  in  it.  They  receive,  whilst 
unembodied,  pay  at  the  rate  of  fourpence  a  day.  The  number  at  which  the 
ultimate  strength  of  the  force  is  to  stand  has  been  fixed  by  the  Act  of  1870  at 
60,000.  At  present,  however,  owing  to  the  short  time  the  system  has  been  at 
work,  it  is  not  nearly  this  strength.  In  the  meantime  an  attempt  has  been 
made  to  supply  its  place  by  the  formation  of  a  militia  reserve. 

The  Staff. — The  staff  is  charged  with  most  important  duties.  The  head- 
quarter staff  at  the  War  Office  superintends  the  whole  business  of  the  army. 
The  general  staff  is  composed  of  picked  men  who  in  most  instances  have  passed 
through  the  Staff  College,  where  they  have  received  a  special  training.  This 
rule,  however,  is  not  invariable,  as  good  service  in  the  field  and  recognized 
ability  also  open  the  door  to  staff  employment.  In  our  service  the  staff  system 
is  somewhat  complicated,  officers  being  too  frequently  set  to  perform  duties  of 
ordinary  routine,  which  in  Continental  armies  would  not  be  regarded  as  falling 
within  their  proper  functions. 

Military  Strenc.th  of  Great  Britain. — According  to  the  army  estimates  for 
the  year  ending  March  31st,  1879,  the  regular  army  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
exclusive  of  India,  was  to  consist  of  7,199  commissioned  officers,  17,199  non- 
commissioned officers,  trumpeters,  and  drummers,  and  111,054  rank  and  file,  or 
a  total  of  all  ranks  of  135,452.     The  proportions  of  various  arms  are: — ■ 


THE    SERVICES.  |.-,L 

Officers.  N.-O.  Offla  ra.  Ui  a. 
Royal  Horse  Artillery,  inch: ding  riding  establishment.     129....     226...     'J.Ts:} 

Cavalry,  including  Household  Regiments 621. ..  .1,378.  . . .  10,928 

Royal  Artillery 095.  . .  .1,650.  . .  .  17,085 

Royal  Engineers 393. .. .     7 is .  .  .  .    I.  i 

Army  Service  Corps 8 500 2,566 

Infantry 3,327. . .  .7,021 . . .  .69,690 

Army  Hospital  Corps 45.  . .  .     203. . . .   1,398 

West  India  Regiments 102 156 1,580 

Colonial  Corps 20.  . . .      61 566 

To  these  must  be  added  the  general  and  departmental  staff,  the  militia  staff, 
and  the  staff  of  the  various  military  institutions,  making  up  the  total  as  above. 
The  following  table  recapitulates  the  various  totals:— 

N.-C.  Officers,     Bank 

Officers.    Trumpeters,  &      and 

Drummers.        File. 

Total  General  and  Departmental  Staff 1,446.  . . .      151 

"     Regiments 5,340. . .  .11,943.  . .  .110,754 

"     Staff  of  Militia 298. ..  .  4,655 

"     Miscellaneous  Staff 115...      450....        300 

Total  regular  army,  the  cost  of  which  is  defrayed  

from  the  estimates 7,199        17,199        111;054 

The  British  army  in  India  for  the  same  year  amounted  to  62,650  men  of  all 
ranks.     Further,  there  are  four  classes  of  auxiliary  forces: — 

Militia 136,778 

Yeomanry 14, 614 

Volunteers 182,810 

Reserve,  1st  Class 19,000 

2d   Class 24,000 

Total  377,202 

Arms  e:\iployed  rx  Infantry,  Cavalry,  and  Artillery. — The  infantry  are 
armed  with  breech-loading  rifles  and  bayonets.  The  range  of  the  rifle  for  prac- 
tical purposes  was  estimated  at  900  yards,  but  recent  experience  has  shown  I 
long-range  fire,  i.  e.,  at  much  greater  distances,  will  probably  be  utilized  in 
future  wars.  Cavalry  soldiers  are  armed  with  sword  and  breech-loading  car- 
bine, lancers  with  the  lance.  The  naked  weapon  or  arme  blanch  i  I  tin-  weapon 
of  the  mounted  cavalry  soldier.  Dismounted,  he  can  use  his  carbine  with  effi  ct. 
The  arm  of  the  artillery  is  the  gun:  light  field  batteries  and  horse-artilLrv  bat- 
teries with  muzzle-loading  rifled  field  guns,  9-pounders;  heavy  field  batteries 
with  16-pounder  guns;  mountain  batteries  with  steel  7-pounder  guns:  batteries 
of  position  with  40-pounder  guns.  A  proportion  of  the  men  are  provide!  with 
carbines  and  swords,  for  individual  defense  or  for  outpost  and  garrison  purposes. 


CHAPTER    XXYI. 

RELIGIOUS     ENGLAND. 

Various  Religious  Sects  in  England — General  Spirit  of  Toleration — Two  Oppo- 
site Tendencies  in  most  Creeds :  (1)  Towards  Excessive  Organization, 
(2)  Reaction  from  Dogmatic  Spirit — General  Survey  of  Activity  of  Church 
of  England — Anglican  Theology:  its  Chief  Aspects — Contemporary  Aspects 
contrasted  with  those  of  a  Former  Period — Importance  of  the  Question, 
whether  Theology  is  Progressive — On  the  Answer  given  to  this  Inquiry, 
Sectarian  Differences  depend — Some  Tendencies  of  Broad  Church  Theology 
— Dr.  Ince — Dean  Stanley — Mr.  Jowett — Mr.  Matthew  Arnold — Present  Prov- 
ince of  Theological  Controversy — The  High  Church  and  Ritualistic  Party: 
their  Differences  and  Resemblances — The  Evangelical  Party — Organiza- 
tion of  Church  of  England — Rectors  ;  Vicars  ;  Perpetual  Curates — Great 
and  Small  Tithes — The  Diocesan  System:  Bishops;  Archdeacons;  Deans; 
Rural  Deans — Organization  of  Protestant  Nonconformists:  Independents; 
"Wesleyans — Organization  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  England — 
Religious  and  Social  Organization  of  the  Jews — Common  Meeting  Ground 
of  all  Sects — Future  of  Religion  in  England. 

IF  variety  of  religious  sects  were  any  test  of  the  earnestness  of  a 
nation's  religious  life,  nineteenth-century  England  might  be 
esteemed  in  an  enviable  condition.  The  total  number  of  separate 
denominations  having  one  or  more  certificated  places  of  worship 
exceeds  one  hundred  and  thirty.  These,  of  course,  represent  not 
merely  divisions  of  the  same  parent  faith,  and  subdivisions,  but 
subdivisions  minutely  subdivided.  In  many  cases,  apparently,  the 
distinction  is  not  so  much  theological  as  social  or  political.  Thus 
Christian  Teetotalers  are  registered  independently  of  the  "Temper- 
ance Church,*'  while  the  "  Church  of  Progress  "  and  the  "  Church  of 
the  People  "  are  the  titles  of  two  other  mutually  separate  commun- 
ions. Scarcely  less  suggestive  than  this  diversity  of  nomenclature 
is  the  multitude  of  announcements  which  are  made  in  the  London 
papers  published  on  Saturday,  under  the  heading  "London  Preach- 
ers for  To-morrow."  The  Establishment  itself  comprehends  a  list 
representing  many  types  of  Christianity,  churchmen,  and  preachers. 
If  we  look  at  the  intimations  which  follow  the  words  ""Nonconformist 
Churches,"  there  is  no  species  of  Latitudinarianism  or  Free  Thought, 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND.  ,|.-,:; 

whose  prophets  are  not  announced  to  appear  in  pulpii  or  on  plat- 
form. In  these  rases,  not  merely  is  the  name  of  the  particular  com- 
munion given,  but  of  the  precise  subject  on  which  the  speaker  may 
be  expected  to  bold  forth.  A  very  cursory  glance  at  the  Long  cata- 
logue will  furnish  some  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  the  practical 
assertion  of  the  principle  of  individualism  in  religious  mat  Ins  has 
been  carried.  Some  of  these  topics  are  colorless  ethical  abstra<  tions. 
Others  testify  to  different  degrees  of  fanaticism,  or  fantasy,  or  anti- 
Christian  and  anti-religious  malignity.  Side  by  side  with  the  an- 
nouncement that  one  evangelist  of  Nonconformity  will  treat  of  the 
"Life  and  Times  of  the  Prophet  Jeremiah,"  we  are  told  that  an 
ingenious  and  speculative  schismatic  will  favor  his  bearers  with  the 
result  of  his  researches  in  the  matter  of  "Lilith,  Adam's  first  wife," 
or  that  another  gentleman  will  lecture  on  "The  Theater  and  the 
People,"  or  that  a  distinguished  astronomer  will  discourse  to  an 
audience  on  "Meteorites  and  Shooting  Stars,"  or  that  there  will 
be  a  prelection  in  some  secular  conventicle  at  the  East  End  of 
London  apropros  of  the  inquiry  "Ought  England  to  be  a  Republic?" 
or  that  a  lady  preacher  of  the  school  which  rejects  all  that  there  is 
in  revelation  and  much  that  there  is  in  morality,  will  candidly  in- 
vestigate "whether  virtue  is  compatible  with  Christianity." 

These  announcements,  which  in  each  case  have  been  taken  liter- 
ally from  the  newspapers  of  the  clay,  the  name  of  the  preacher  and 
of  the  chapel  alone  having  been  suppressed,  will  be  regarded  ac- 
cording to  the  temper  of  the  critic,  either  as  evidence  of  the  multi- 
plicity of  error,  or  of  the  praiseworthy  activity  of  the  modern  mind 
in  declining  to  take  anything  for  granted,  and  in  not  being  deterred 
from  the  duties  of  original  investigation  of  the  loftiest  subjects  which 
can  engage  the  human  mind.  The  age  has  been  variously  spoken  of 
as  one  of  religious  indifferentism  and  religious  zeal,  of  generally  ex- 
tended belief,  and  of  wide-spread  skepticism.  It  possesses,  m  >  doubt, 
some  of  each  of  these  more  or  less  various  characteristics.  Perhaps 
its  two  most  real  and  distinctive  features  in  all  that  appertains  to 
affairs  of  spiritual  faith  are  its  activity  and  its  toleration.  Here,  as 
eveiywhere  in  this  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  are  percep- 
tible the  different  influences  of  the  spirit  of  transition  and  of  organ- 
ization. At  the  very  moment  that  men  are  quick  to  take  sides,  keen 
to  identify  themselves  with  some  phase  or  other  of  the  religious  .  >r 
irreligious  development  of  the  time,  they  are  disposed  to  admit  that 
theological  truth  may  reside  in  an  entirely  different  direction,  that 
truth  itself  is  not  to  be  found  in  its  integrity  anywhere,  and  that 
scattered  elements  of  truth  may  be  discovered  in  every  quarter.     It 


454  ENGLAND. 

is  not,  perhaps,  an  age  in  which  men  would  go  to  the  stake  with  an 
unshaken  conviction  that  they  were  sacrificing  life  for  an  infallible 
faith.  It  is  rather  an  age  in  which  men  write  pamphlets  and  essays, 
promulgate  manifestoes,  and,  if  necessary,  incur  lawsuits,  with  the 
loud-voiced  and  often-repeated  asseveration  that  they  and  those  who 
hold  with  them  are,  and  only  can  be,  in  the  right.  It  is  an  age  in 
which  obstinacy  is  likely  to  be  mistaken  for  belief,  and  in  which  the 
passion  for  controversy  may  sometimes  appear  a  heart-deep  devo- 
tion to  fundamental  principles:  an  age  in  which  enthusiasm  does 
not  necessarily  mean  intensity,  and  in  which  fervor  is  often  in  an 
inverse  proportion  to  noise;  an  age  in  which  all  religions  are  highly 
organized,  but  not  on  that  account  generally  and  profoundly  be- 
lieved in ;  an  age  of  observance,  more  than  conviction,  of  worship  in 
a  greater  degree  than  faith. 

A  short  examination  of  the  existing  condition  of  the  Church  of 
England  will  suffice  to  explain  and  justify  the  views  which  have 
just  been  advanced.  The  Establishment,  it  may  be  perhaps  ob- 
jected, of  the  religion  of  a  half,  possibly  of  a  bare  majority,  of  the 
people  of  England,  is  no  longer  co-extensive  with  the  Kingdom,  and 
is  itself  split  up  into  sects  many  of  them  differing  more  widely  from 
each  other  than  they  do  respectively  from  many  Roman  Catholics 
and  Protestant  Nonconformists  outside  its  pale.  Still,  the  Estab- 
lishment is  entitled  to  be  considered  as  fairly  representative  of  the 
nation,  while  above  and  beyond  this  is  the  fact,  that  the  Establish- 
ment is  a  church,  and,  as  such,  subject  to  much  the  same  influences, 
distracted  by  nearly  the  same  internal  differences  and  controversies 
as  other  churches.  Thus  the  various  parties  that  may  be  seen  in 
the  Anghcan  communion  have  their  reflections  and  analogues  in 
the  parties  which  divide  Roman  Catholicism  or  Protestant  Noncon- 
formity— the  difference  in  the  case  of  the  former  being  that  the 
supreme  perfection  of  its  discipline  dwarfs  or  suppresses  much  that 
might  otherwise  be  fully  developed  in  openly  asserted  schism.  If 
the  Church  of  England  is  tolerant  and  comprehensive,  it  is  because 
comprehensiveness  and  tolerance  are  the  notes  of  the  times,  and  as 
is  the  tendency  of  the  day  such  is  certain  to  be  the  spirit  of  the 
administration  of  any  particular  church.  But  concurrently  with 
the  general  attitude  of  forbearance  may  be  noticed  that  excessive 
addiction  to  organization,  of  which  mention  has  already  been  made. 
Let  us  place  the  two  in  close  juxtaposition,  directing  our  attention 
first  to  the  latter. 

How  elaborate  is  the  machinery  for  guaranteeing  the  due  observ- 
ance of  the  Anglican  ritual  may  be  judged  from  the  following  sta- 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND.  IV" 

tistics.     Out  of  854  churches  within  the   i.  litan   area  tin 

is  a  weekly  celebration  of  the  Holy  Communion  in  390,  nearly  one 
half;  daily  Holy  Communion  in  42,  one  church  in  every  20;  early 
Communion  in  458,  more  than  one  half;  choral  celebration  in  12(>. 
nearly  one  seventh;  evening-  Holy  Communion  in  246,  more  th 
one  fourth.  There  is  service  on  saints'  days  in  415  churches,  nearly 
one  half;  daily  service  in  243,  more  than  one  fourth;  while  in  I 
cases,  nearly  one  sixth,  there  is  no  week-day  service.  The  service 
is  fully  choral  in  2(51  churches,  nearly  one  third,  and  partly  choral 
in  240,  or  two  sevenths,  thus  giving  501  churches  out  of  854  where 
the  Psalms  are  chanted.  There  is  a  surpliced  choir  in  355,  more 
than  two  fifths;  the  choir  is  paid  or  partly  paid  in  '220,  more  than 
one  fourth,  and  voluntary  in  386,  more  than  two  fifths.  Gregorian 
tones  are  used  wholly  or  partly  in  115,  nearly  one  seventh.  The 
seats  are  free  and  open  in  252,  more  than  one  fourth;  and  th<  re  is 
a  weekly  offertory  in  405,  more  than  one  half.  The  surplice  is  worn 
in  preaching  in  463,  more  than  one  half.  The  eucharistic  v  stments 
are  adopted  in  35,  or  one  church  in  every  24;  incense  is  used  in  14, 
and  altar-lights  are  used  in  58,  one  ninth;  while  in  41  other  chin.  ' 
there  are  candles  on  the  altar,  but  they  are  not  lighted.  The  east- 
ward position  is  adopted  by  the  celebrant  at  the  Holy  Communion 
in  179  churches,  nearly  one  fifth;  123,  nearly  one  seventh,  are  open 
daily  for  private  prayer;  floral  decorations  are  introduced  at  2 
more  than  one  fourth;  the  feast  of  dedication  is  observed  at  149, 
nearly  one  sixth;  the  shortened  form  of  daily  service  sanctioned  by 
the  Act  of  Uniformity  Amendment  Act  is  used  at  88,  nearly  one 
tenth;  the  Sunday  services  are  separated  at  40;  the  old  lectionary  is 
still  used  exclusively  at  12  churches,  and  the  old  and  new  optionally 
at  six.  * 

If  to  the  above  statement  we  add  the  total  expenditure  of 
energy,  piety,  and  good  works,  which  the  parochial  system  of  the 
Church  of  England  involves,  if  we  further  remember  that  larger 
benefactions  are  being  perpetually  made  by  private  persons  to  the 
Establishment — that  the  wealth  of  the  manufacturers  of  the  north 
of  the  United  Kingdom  is  often  devoted  to  the  building  and  the 
endowment  of  new  churches  in  districts  that  are  supposed  to  n 
them,  it  will  be  apparent  that  the  zeal  which  Anglicanism  can  bo 
is  at  its  disposal  is  very  remarkable,  both  as  regards  character  and 
degree.     It  is  significant,  and  it  is  only  just,  to  place  by  the  side  of 

*  These  facts  and  figures  are  taken  from  tlie  thirteenth  issue  of  Mi 
"Guide  to  the  Churches  of  London  and  its  Suburbs,"  and  in  this  matter  L  a 
don  may  be  regarded  as  fairly  representative  of  the  rest  of  England. 


456  ENGLAND. 

sucli  facts  as  these  some  to  which  attention  is  less  frequently  or  less 
publicly  directed  The  signs  of  external  activity  which  the  Church 
of  England  possesses  may  be  all  that  are  admirable;  what  is  to  be 
said  of  the  evidences  of  her  internal  spiritual  hie '?  A  distinguished 
living  theologian,  the  Regius  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Oxford,  has 
drawn  attention,  in  an  introductory  lecture,  to  the  vicissitudes 
which  English  theology  has  experienced.  Eroin  the  Reformation 
to  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Dr.  Ince  remarks,  his  own 
university  was  given  up  to  the  disputes  between  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic and  the  Protestants,  or  between  the  Calvinists  and  the  Arcnin- 
ians.  From  1650  to  1750,  theology  was  merged  in  politics,  and  the 
great  texts  of  the  pulpit  were  those  which  bore  on  the  divine  right 
of  kings,  and  the  duty  of  non-resistance.  Then  came  the  struggle 
about  the  evidences  of  Christianity,  which  was  followed  by  the  Tract- 
arian  movement.  What  are  the  issues  now  substituted  for  those 
which  that  movement  raised?  *  Whereas  formerly,  the  questions  dis- 
cussed in  the  Divinity  Schools  at  Oxford  were  five :  "  predestination, 
universal  redemption,  reprobation,  irresistible  grace,  final  persever- 
ance," the  vexed  points  now  are — incenses,  lights,  vestments,  east- 
ward position,  wafer  bread,  mixed  chalice. 

These,  indeed,  are  not  the  only  subjects  which  engage  the  atten- 
tion of  contemporary  theologians.  The  discussion  between  the  most 
eminent  of  our  theological  controversialists  is  not  so  much  on  the 
doctrines  of  the  English  Church,  as  on  the  nature  of  the  scriptural 
record.  This,  it  may  be  urged,  involves  principles  still  more  mo- 
mentous than  those  which  underlay  the  inquiries  of  an  earlier  period 
into  the  nature  of  predestination,  and  the  other  points  enumerated 
above.  For  these  doctrines  can  only  be  verified  in  the  last  degree 
by  the  testimony  of  the  Bible,  to  which  some  would  add  the  concur- 
rent testimony  of  ecclesiastical  tradition.  The  questions  which  such 
theologians  as  Bishop  Lightfoot,  Professor  Westcott,  and  Mr.  San- 
day  are  endeavoring  to  decide  is  of  what  the  really  inspired  writings 
consist,  and  to  what  exactly  inspiration  itself  amounts.  Of  course, 
there  are  other  problems  in  addition  to  those  mentioned — the  eter- 
nity of  punishment,  and  the  final  restoration  of  all  things.  But  the 
tendency  is  for  the  more  scientific,  who  in  this  case  are  the  more 
practical  of  theologians,  to  lay  less  stress  upon  these  subjects,  as  ad- 
mitting possibly  of  no  scientific  demonstration,  and  to  weigh  all  the 
evidence  for  and  against  the  alleged  antiquity  of  certain  writings, 
and  the  degree  of  authority  which  they  may  be  regarded  as  carry- 
ing with  them.  This  is  the  positive  and  historic  method,  and  in 
some  ways  it  indicates  an  immense  advance  within  the  pale  of  the 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND.  457 

Anglican  Church  since  Dr.  Hampden  wis  almost  excommunicated 

for  remarking  on  the  obsoleteness  of  the  phraseology  of  the  Athan- 
asian  Creed,  or  the  authors  of  "Essays  and  Reviews"  weri  con- 
demned by  Convocation  for  the  production  of  a  blasphemous  and 
heretical  book. 

"What  has  just  been  said  will  enable  us  to  form  a  better  idea  of 
the  exact  position  of  the  Broad  Church  part}  al  the  present  day. 
It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  state  that  there  is  a  single  question  the 
answer  given  to  which  would  serve  definitely  to  lix.  a  man's  place  in 
relation  to  the  several  sects  of  Anghcan  Christianity.  This  question 
is:  Can  theology  be  called  a  progressive  science ?  According  to  all 
the  great  leaders  of  the  Broad  Church  party,  it  can.  On  this,  poi 
hear  Dean  Stanley: — "What  has  become  of  the  belief  once  abso- 
lutely universal  in  Christendom,  that  unless  by-some  altogether  i 
ceptional  intervention,  no  human  being  could  be  saved  who  had  not 
passed  through  the  waters  of  baptism ;  that  even  innocent  children, 
if  not  immersed  in  the  font,  were  doomed  to  endless  perdition  ?  Or 
where  are  the  interminable  questions  respecting  the  doctrine  of  pre- 
destination or  the  mode  of  justification  which  occupied  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  century  in  Protestant  churches?  Into  what  limbo 
has  passed  the  terrible  conflict  between  the  Burghers  and  the  Anti- 
Burghers  amongst  the  now  United  Presbyterians?  What  do  we 
now  hear  of  "the  doctrine  of  the  Double  Procession,  or  of  the  Light 
on  Mount  Tabor,  which  in  the  ninth  century  and  in  the  fifteenth, 
filled  the  mind  of  Eastern  Christendom?  These  questions  for  the 
time  occupied,  in  these  several  churches,  the  whole  horizon  of  theo- 
logical thought.  They  are  dead  and  buried;  and  for  us,  standing 
on  their  graves,  it  is  idle  to  say  that  theology  has  not  changed.  It 
has  changed.  Religion  has  survived  those  changes;  and  tins  is  the 
historical  pledge  that  it  may,  that  it  will  survive  a  thousand  more." 
Of  course,  in  one  sense,  this  indicates  a  real  progress,  but  prog- 
whence  and  whither?  Scarcely  from  a  less  belief  in  the  letter  of 
revealed  religion  to  a  greater.  The  dispute  now,  in  i';u\,  is  not  as 
it  once  was  about  the  interpretation  of  the  dogmatic  tern  ts  of  relig- 
ion, but  about  the  nature  of  religion  itself.  Those  who  hold  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  verbal  inspiration  of  Scripture,  and  the  unbroken 
tradition  of  the  Church,  cannot  mean  the  same  thing  when  tl 
speak  of  religion,  theology,  or  Christianity,  as  those  who  COnsid<  r 
that  religion  is  progressive  in  the  sense  already  explained,  and  who 
admit,  as  Dr.  Ince  and  others  do,  that  many  notions  concerning  the 

*  "Sermons  and  Addresses,"  by  the  Dean  of  Westiuins!..  r.    Macmillan,  i 


458  ENGLAND. 

books  of  the  Bible  once  deemed  orthodox  are  erroneous.  When 
men  do  not  use  the  same  words  in  the  same  sense,  it  is  out  of  the 
question  that  any  agreement  shall  ever  be  arrived  at  between  them. 
Thus  when  Dean  Stanley  substitutes  for  the  phrase  "  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  theology  and  religion/'  "  the  recognition  that  so  far  as  they 
meet,  theology  and  science  are  one  and  indivisible,"  he  scarcely  sig- 
nifies by  theology  all  that  those  who  are  persuaded  that  the  text  of 
the  Bible  as  we  have  it,  is  the  precisely  written  word  of  Omnipo- 
tence signify;  or  by  science,  all  that  to  Professor  Huxley  that  word 
implies.  Such  expressions  as  "  whatever  enlarges  our  ideas  of  na- 
ture, enlarges  our  ideas  of  God;"  "whatever  is  bad  theology  is  bad 
science;"  "whatever  is  good  science  is  good  theology,"  are  open  to 
the  same  criticism.  When,  therefore,  an  analogy  is  drawn  between 
the  progressiveness  of  astronomy  and  theology,  it  must  be  accepted 
with  some  reserve.  The  historical  method  of  which  literary  criti- 
cism is  an  integral  part  has  changed — euphemistically  speaking — 
has  enlarged,  our  conception  of  certain  central  theological  facts,  has 
disposed,  as  Dean  Stanley  reminds  us,  of  "  untenable  interpreta- 
tions;" "wrong  translations;"  "mistaken  punctuation."  But  what 
is  the  relation  in  which  these  instruments  of  progress  stand  to  the 
miracles,  and  other  great  facts,  belief  in  which  is  an  essential  part 
of  Christianity,  as  Christianity  has  in  time  past  been  understood  ? 
Is  it  not  much  the  same  thing  to  say  that  there  has  been  an  advance 
in  theology  as  it  would  be  to  say  that  there  has  been  an  advance  in 
astronomy  if  a  convenient  compromise  had  been  found  possible  be- 
tween those  who  accepted  and  those  who  rejected  the  idea  of  the 
law  of  gravitation,  or  of  the  sphericity  of  the  earth  ? 

Dean  Stanley  is  far  from  being  an  extreme  illustration  of  this 
tendency.  The  religion  of  latitudinarianism  is  not  a  religion  in  the 
same  sense  as  the  religion  of  the  High  Church  or  of  the  Evangelical 
party.  The  truth  is,  that  the  doctors  of  the  Broad  Church  school 
use  the  current  terms  of  theology  in  an  esoteric  sense  peculiar  to 
themselves.  Thus  in  a  recent  sermon  Mr.  Jowett,  the  Master  of 
Balliol,*  spoke  of  the  divinity  of  Christ's  life,  but  he  did  not  mean 
that  Christ  was  divine.  He  spoke  of  the  overshadowing  providence 
of  God,  but  he  did  not  mean  a  personal  God.  He  spoke  of  a  Chris- 
tian Trinity,  but  he  defined  its  three  elements  to  be  a  pantheistic 
conception  of  Godhead;  all  that  is  Godlike  in  human  life  and  char- 
acter, and  all  well-attested  facts  of  science  and  history.  This  is 
scarcely  the  Trinity  of  the  divinity  schools.     Or  take  the  case  of 

*  Preached  at  St.  Mary's,  Oxford,  February  1G,  1879. 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND.  r,:» 

tlie  most  accomplished  literary  critic,  and  almost  the  i   poet 

|    of  the  day:  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold     Mr.  Arnold  is.  according  to  his 

own  view,  not  only  a  poet  and  critic,  but  a  theologian.  Be  ha, 
written  in  defense  of  the  Church  of  England,  as  a  center  of  relic- 
ious  sweetness,  light,  and  culture,  against  the  attacks  of  political  Non- 
conformists. He  holds  that  the  Church  is  "a  national  society  for 
the  dili'usion  of  goodness,"  and,  holding  this  view,  he  claims  to  1. 
very  good  Churchman.  The  instruments  to  be  employed  by  the 
Church  in  the  attainment  of  the  end  of  its  existence  are  Chri  tianity 
and  the  Bible.  But  in  what  sense  can  Mr.  Arnold  be  said  to  accept 
either,  when  he  interprets  three  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christi- 
anity in  the  following  words:  "Eternal  life?  Yes,  the  life  in  tlio 
higher  and  undying  self  of  men.  Judgment?  Yes,  the  trying,  in 
conscience,  of  the  claims  and  instigations  of  the  two  lives,  and  the  de- 
cision between  them.  Resurrection?  Yes,  the  rising  from  bond 
and  transience  with  the  lower  life  to  victory  and  permanence  with 
the  higher.  The  kingdom  of  God?  Yes,  the  reign  amongst  man- 
kind of  the  higher  life.  The  Christ  the  Son  of  God?  Yes,  the 
bringer-in  and  founder  of  this  reign  of  the  higher  life,  this  true 
kingdom  of  God." 

Of  course,  these  views,  or  any  thing  approaching  to  these  views, 
would  be  conscientiously  repudiated  by  many  distinguished  mem- 
bers o*f  the  Broad  Church  party.  Nevertheless,  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  this  is  not  the  tendency  of  all  Broad  Church  theology,  and 
whether  the  boldly-avowed  opinions  of  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  do  not 
represent  the  ultimate  analysis  of  some  of  the  cardinal  ideas  of  eccle- 
siastical latitudinarianism.  As  it  is  the  historical  method  which  is 
■  chiefly  characteristic  of  the  Broad  Church  party,  so,  too,  there  is  an 
historical  aspect  to  the  party  which  is  at  the  opposite  pole  of  con- 
tenrporary  ecclesiasticism — the  Ritualists.  For  the  multitude,  it 
may  safely  be  said,  Ritualism  is  little  more  than  an  affair  of  p 
ure,  millinery,  music,  and  decoration.  The  ground  on  which  the 
lengths  resorted  to  by  Ritualists  in  each  of  these  matters  are  de- 
fended is,  that  such  extremes  are  historically  justifiable,  thai  tl 
are  what  the  rubric  of  the  Anglican  Church  enjoins,  or  that  they  are 
what  the  spiritual  rulers  of  that  Church  have  an  historical  claim  to 
command.  Eminently  historical,  too,  were,  in  a  sense,  the  infl 
which  presided  over  the  birth  of  the  party  that  for  practical  pur- 
poses has  become  merged  in  the  Ritualists.  There  came  up  to 
Oxford,  between  the  years  1820  and  1840,  a  number  of  under-gra  I- 
uates,  most  of  whom  had  been  educated  under  Evangelical  intlu- 
ences,  and  including  John  Henry  Newman,  Pusey,  KebL    G       Ley, 


460  ENGLAND. 

Manning,  Faber,  Froude,  Palmer,  Perceval,  Churton.  The  avowed 
object  of  these  men  was  to  withstand  all  changes,  and  to  maintain 
pure  doctrine  and  primitive  practice.  The  profession  of  these  views 
was  followed  by  the  study  of  history.  The  records  of  the  third  cen- 
tury were  investigated,  the  ritual  and  creed  of  Pome  examined.  A 
sentiment  of  hostility  to  the  Reformation  developed  itself.  Opinions 
not  held  in  the  third  century  began  to  be  entertained.  Purgatory, 
prayers  for  the  dead,  the  confessional,  the  saints,  baptismal  regener- 
ation, were  regarded  with  reverence. 

The  direct  descendants  of  these  men,  in  that  state  of  their  belief 
before  these  views  were  carried  to  their  logical  results,  there  still 
are  among  us,  but  the  undoubted  tendency  is  to  sink  the  High 
Church  party  in  the  Eitualists.  There  can  be  no  greater  contrast 
than  that  between  the  religious  ceremonial  of  the  first  founders  of 
the  school  and  the  cultus  of  contemporary  Ritualism.  The  old  type 
of  High  Church  divine,  a .  scholastic  gentleman,  well  read  in  the 
Fathers,  and  well  informed  generally  on  subjects  of  architecture  and 
archaeology,  betraying  a  quiet  weakness  for  anthems  and  painted 
glass,  a  cultivated  and  agreeable  companion,  is  seldom  met  with  now. 
The  later  specimen  is  a  more  or  less  boisterous  young  divine,  much 
given  to  the  inarticulate  mumbling  of  many  services.  He  is,  per- 
haps, less  particular  about  the  cleanliness  of  his  surplice  than  his 
predecessor,  but  is  very  precise  as  to  the  fit  of  his  colored  and  em- 
broidered stole.  He  is  fond  of  speaking  in  his  sermons  about  the 
Church,  and  her  kindness  to  her  ungrateful  children.  This  phrase- 
ology is  often  confusing  to  the  lower  classes,  and  a  ballad  has  been 
written,  which  has  obtained  much  popularity,  embodying  the  com- 
plaint of  an  old-fashioned  villager  at  the  new  style.  He  used,  he 
says,  to  understand  when  he  heard  of  "  Christ  our  Lord,"  of  "  His 
work"  and  "His  love";  now,  he  addresses  his  clergyman,  "you  only- 
talk  of  she."  The  same  person  is  represented  as  saying,  that  no 
doubt  the  painted  glass  windows  may  be  very  fine,  but  then  he  re- 
grets the  days  when  he  could  look  through  the  panes  upon  the  blue 
sky  and  the  climbing  roses.  The  Ritualist  curate,  or  the  newly- 
fledged  Ritualist  rector,  betrays  certain  resemblances  to  those  re- 
ligious sects  whom  of  all  others  they  detest — the  Protestant  Dis- 
senters— in  their  occasional  disregard  for  scholarship  and  culture, 
and  in  their  invectives  against  State  tyranny. 

The  Ritualistic  divine  of  this  order,  who  has  been  known  before 
now  to  engage  the  services  of  a  sacristan,  to  drill  his  choir  in  the 
movements  of  the  Sarum  Mass,  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from 
the  Anglican  parish  priest,  devoted  to  the  spiritual  and  temporal 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND.  hit 


welfare  of  his  flock,  who  is  to  be  found  constantly  al   the  villa 
school,  by  the  bedside  of  the  sick  and  dying,  in  the  cottages  of  the 
poor  and  the  hovels  of  the  afflicted.     Nor  while  the  ringing  voice  of 
Canon  Liddon  thrills  through  the  dome  of  Si.  Paul's  Cathedral,  and 
while  that  Cathedral  in  its  Dean,  Dr.  Church,  possesses  the  Bcholar- 
like  biographer  of  Archbishop  Anselni.  can  it  be  Baid  thai  the  found- 
ers of  the  High  Church  party  are  without  true  and  worthy  represent- 
atives.    Essentially  anti-popular  as  the  pretensions  of  Ritualism,  or 
to  speak  of  it  by  the  name  which  is  most  convenient  in  this  conto 
Anglican  Sacerdotalism  is — there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  attracts  an 
increasing  number  of  adherents.     It  is  immaterial  to  the  multitude 
of  those  who  flock  to  witness  the  ornate  ceremonial  of  Ritualism, 
that  the  theory  of  these  services  is,  that  they  are  performed  by  the 
priest  for  the  people,  and  that  the  priesthood  thus  performing  thi 
is  a  body  divinely  appointed,  a  caste  by  itself  gifted  with  the  power 
of  the  remission  of  sins.     The  exaltation  of  priestly  authority  to  this 
point  may  be  in  its  idea  distasteful  to  the  English  people,  but  it  is 
not  with  the  idea  that  thev  are  concerned.     Thev  are  onlv  consci 
of  the  odors  of  incense,  of  the  brilliance  of  many-colored  vestures, 
of  melodious  notes,  of  all  the  influences  which  can  lull  or  excite  the 
senses.     It  is  a  decorative  age,  and  Ritualism  is  above  all  thin 
ornamental.     It  is  an  emotional  age,  and  Ritualism  appeals  pre-em- 
inently to  the  emotions.     Ritualism  has  supplied  the  want  long  felt 
by  the  aesthetic  element  in  religion,  and  Ritualism  had  its  begin- 
nings in  earnest  and  pious  efforts  to  secure  for  the  solemnization  of 
the  services  of  the  Church  more  of  dignity  and  propriety,  better 
fabrics,  and  better  music. 

While  it  is  certain  that  the  services  of  Ritualism  attract  many  of 
both  sexes,  who  would  otherwise  have  found  their  place  in  the  Evan- 
gelical fold,  and  that  every  Ritualistic  Church  has  among  its  congre- 
gation many  of  that  class  which  would  five-and-twenty  years  a  i 
have  crowded  to  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations,  the  Evan- 
gelical party  cannot  be  said  to  have  ceased  to  exist.  It  lias,  on  the 
contrary,  all  the  elements  of  vitality — deep  religious  fervor,  as  influ- 
ential religious  organization,  a  great  deal  of  valuable  ecclesiastical 
patronage  exercised  through  the  Simeon  Trustees,  leaders  of  recog- 
nized ability.  Yet  of  late  years  the  Low  Churchmeu  have  lost  much 
of  their  unction,  and  much  of  their  exclusiveness.  Their  influei 
remains,  but  it  is  exercised  often  quite  as  much  outside  as  wit! 
the  limits  of  their  own  sectarian  pale.  The  great  work  with  which 
the  names  of  the  Evangelical  leaders  will  ever  be  identified  was  the 
revival  of  personal  religion;  the  task  which  the  High  Church  party 


462  ENGLAND. 

helped  to  accomplish  was  the  introduction  of  new  principles  of  order 
and  reverence  into  the  services  of  the  Church.  There  are  many 
points  on  which  clergymen,  calling  and  considering  themselves  Evan- 
gelical, are  absolutely  one  with  clergymen  of  the  Broad  Church 
school — such,  for  instance,  as  the  right  of  the  laity  to  a  voice  in  the 
performance  of  services,  and  even  the  regulation  and  interpretation 
of  dogmas;  the  necessity  of  preserving  within  certain  limits  the  his- 
torical method;  other  cognate  matters.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
natural  there  should  be  many  evangelical  clergymen  who,  especially 
as  they  rise  in  their  profession,  are  disposed  to  magnif}r  their  apostle- 
ship.  Hence,  in  Evangelicalism  at  the  present  day  there  is  a  tend- 
ency, first,  on  the  part  of  some,  to  gravitate  towards  Broad  Church- 
ism;  secondly,  on  the  pai-t  of  others  to  gravitate  to  what  survives  of 
the  old  Constitutional  High  Church  party. 

First  among  the  parochial  clergy  rank  rectors,  who  alone  are 
strictly  entitled  to  the  designation  of  parson,  "  the  most  legal,  the 
most  beneficial,  and  most  honorable  title,"  according  to  Blackstone, 
"  that  a  parish  priest  can  enjoy,  because'  such  an  one  as  he  only  is 
said  vicem  serj,  personam  ecclesice  gerere."  The  chief  distinction  be- 
tween a  rector  and  a  vicar  is  that  the  former  receives  all  the  tithes, 
I  ' 

great  and  small,  but  the  latter  usually  the  small  tithes  only.  It  was 
in  the  thirteenth  century  that  vicars  came  into  existence,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  appropriation  of  tithes  to  spiritual  corporations, 
whence  at  the  period  of  the  Reformation  they  passed,  under  grants 
by  the  Crown,  into  lay  hands.  To  the  great  tithes  there  attaches 
the  obligation  of  keeping  the  chancel  in  repair.  Originally,  the 
small  tithes  were  all  the  tithes,  except  those  of  corn,  and  sometimes 
of  hay.  Prior  to  1835,  no  farmer  could  remove  his  corn  from  a 
field  until  it  had  remained  there  for  three  days,  in  order  to  give 
time  to  the  rector's  agents  to  take  a  tenth  stalk,  unless  some  special 
agreement  between  parishioner  and  rector  had  been  entered  into; 
and  of  course,  in  many  cases  these  agreements  were  made.  Nat- 
urally under  this  system  there  were  many  inconveniences  and  many 
disputes,  which  urgently  called  for  reform.  In  1835  Lord  John 
Russell  passed  an  Act  commuting  the  average  value  of  the  tithes 
received  during  the  previous  seven  years  into  a  corresponding  an- 
nual payment,  subject  to  variations  according  to  the  average  prices 
of  corn.  The  freehold  of  the  church,  churchyard,  and  glebe  vests 
in  the  parson  during  his  life. 

Perpetual  curates  were  one  of  the  products  of  the  Restoration, 
when  the  Sovereign  sent  a  circular  to  the  bishops  and  chapters  of 
the  different  dioceses,  pointing  out  the  inadequacy  of  the  provision 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND. 

for  the  cure  of  souls.     This  deficiency  was  supplied  by  tb  tu- 

tion  of  perpetual  curates,  whose  stipends  were  derived   from  an 
annual  payment  which   the   dignitaries   charged    on    the    rectorial 
estates,  in  the  possession  of  the  fee-simple  of  which  the  perpetual 
curate-  had,  of  course,  no  part.     In  the  last   fifteen  years  the  v< 
name  has  well  nigh  disappeared,  and  those  who  were  perpetual 

/  curates  are  by  Act  of  Parliament  constituted  vicars.  II  is,  how- 
ever, to  the  poverty  of  this  order  that  the  Church  of  England  is 
indebted  for  the  institution  of  one  of  its  funds — that  known  as 

/  Queen  Anne's  Bounty.  At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  c  n- 
tury,  the  stipends  of  the  perpetual  curates  were  so  miserably  low 
as  to  be  a  scandal  to  the  Establishment.  Queen  Anne,  conse- 
quently, was  induced  to  suggest  to  Parliament  the  appropriation 
of  certain  sums,  which  would  in  ordinary  circumstances  have  gone 
to  the  Crown,  to  the  augmentation  of  the  perpetual  curates'  sti- 
pends. This  process  has  continued  uninterruptedly  to  the  presenl 
"time,  and  the  Governors  of  Queen  Anne's  Bounty  are  frequently 
lending  sums  of  money,  to  be  returned  by  installments,  to  assist 
clergymen  to  build  and  improve  parsonage  houses.  About  the 
same  time  that  the  Act  was  passed  for  the  commutation  of  tithes, 
the  Ecclesiastical  Commission  was  appointed,  which,  amongst  other 
things,  has  been  the  means  of  very  generally  increasing  the  i; 
of  Church  livings,  in  cases  where  they  fell  below  that  sum,  to  £300 
a  year. 

The  archdeacons  of  a  diocese  are  appointed  by  the  bishop,  and 
'  exercise  within  their  archdeaconries  a  jurisdiction  immediately  sub- 
ordinate to  him.     They  wear  shovel  hats,  similar  to  those  used  by 
the  episcopate,  but  without  strings.     Etiquette  prescribes  that  the 
archidiaconal  frock-coat  should  not  be  so  short  as  a  prelate's,  and 
that  the  apron  should  only  be  worn  in  the   evening  and  on  si 
occasions.     Like  the  bishop,  the  archdeacon  has  powers  distinctly 
specified  bylaw.     Chief  amongst  these  are  the  prerogative,  in  vi  - 
tue  of  which  he  can  by  summoning  the  clergy  create  a  court     On 
the  occasion  of  his  periodical  visitation,  the  archdeacon  is  attended 
by  a  legal  official  who  stands  to  him  in  \\w  same  relation  thai 
chancellor  does  to  the  bishop.     The  archdeacon — and  if  the  dioc 
is  extensive  there  will  be  more  than  one  incumbent  of  the  office — 
is  above  all  things  the  business  man  of  the  diocese.     As  the  bishop 
deals  primarily  and  directly  with  the  clergy,  so  is  (he  archdea< 
specially  brought  into  contact  with  the  churchwardens.     The  ch  a 
which  he  delivers  to  the  clergy  is  quite  as  much  intended  t  r 
custodians  of  the  fabric  of  the  church  in  every  parish, 


4Gi  ENGLAND. 

spiritual  officer,  the  rector,  vicar,  or  curate.  Generally,  the  arch- 
deacon, avoids  touching  in  these  charges,  in  any  very  pronounced 
manner,  on  questions  of  doctrine  and  dogma.  The  organization  of 
a  parish,  and  the  conduct  of  services  are  both  subjects  specially 
proper  to  the  archidiaconal  addresses. 

When  he  is  inspecting  the  external  and  the  internal  condition  of 
the  ecclesiastical  building,  he  has  as  his  companions  the  two  church- 
wardens, of  whom  one  is  the  special  representative  of  the  congrega- 
tion just  as  the  other  is  of  the  clergyman.  To  these  he  points  out 
any  defects  or  imperfections  in  the  edifice,  suggests  a  remedy,  and 
is  empowered  to  give  a  written  order  demanding  that  this  sugges- 
tion shall  be  carried  into  effect.  If  this  mandate  is  neglected,  he 
can  report  the  matter  to  the  bishop,  but  he  has  himself  no  power  to 
compel  the  action  which  he  recommends.  The  service  to  the  church 
which  a  discreetly  vigilant  and  energetic  churchwarden  may  render 
is  great.  The  race  of  sleepy  and  obstinate  clergymen  and  church- 
wardens is  not  extinct,  and  the  archdeacon,  having  a  right  to  inspect 
the  church  at  all  periods,  may,  by  courteously  but  firmly  impress- 
ing upon  the  minds  of  those  responsible  for  its  material  order,  the 
necessity  of  improvement  and  care,  prevent  many  abuses  and  scan- 
dals. Moreover,  both  on  the  occasions  of  his  regular  visitations, 
and  at  other  times  in  a  less  formal  manner,  the  archdeacon  dis- 
charges distinctly  educational  duties;  he  makes  it  his  business  to 
explain  to  all  with  whom  he  is  brought  into  contact,  what  are  the 
ecclesiastical  requirements  of  the  law  of  the  State,  and  how  these 
are  affected  by  successive  acts  of  legislation. 

Nor  do  the  functions  of  the  archdeacon  end  here.  Not  only  is 
he,  as  he  is  often  called,  "the  eye  of  the  bishop,"  superintending  as 
the  episcopal  representative  indeed,  but,  at  the  same  time,  as  an 
independent  authority,  whose  reports  will  not  necessarily  come  be- 
fore the  bishop,  the  state  of  the  ecclesiastical  edifices,  and  pro- 
nouncing to  the  bishop  on  the  fitness  of  churches  for  consecration, 
but  he  represents  the  preliminary  tribunal  which  candidates  for 
orders  must  pass.  His  sanction  also  is  necessary  to  give  legal  va- 
lidity to  the  nomination  of  those  churchwardens  with  whom,  as  we 
have  seen,  he  is  mainly  brought  into  contact.  At  the  same  time, 
though,  theoretically,  it  is  for  the  archdeacon  to  decide  the  eligi- 
bility of  any  intending  clergyman  for  the  Anglican  priesthood,  this 
duty  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  invariably  delegated  to  the  bishop's 
examining  chaplain.  As  regards'  the  churchwardens,  the  archdea- 
con formally  admits  these  to  then  offices  and  they  are  regularly 
sworn  in  before  him. 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND.  465 

The  cathedral  is  the  central  or  mother  church  of  the  dioa 
and  is  administered  by  a  dean  and  chapter  of  canons  residentiary, 

whose  number  is  usually  four.     The  dean,  who  enjoys  the  title  of 

"very  reverend,*'  and  ranks  next  to  the  bishop,  is  appointed  bv  the 
Crown,  except  indeed  in  the  dioceses  of  Wales,  where  their  appoint- 
ment rests  with  the  bishop.  The  canons,  whose  stalls  are  confern  .1 
upon  them  in  theory — and  in  the  present  day  it  must  be  owned  the 
theory  is  usually  carried  out — in  recognition  of  distinguished  ser- 
vices or  acquirements,  usually  take  it  in  turn  to  reside,  the  period 
of  residence  being  commonly  three  months.  They  are  appointed  in 
some  cases  by  the  Crown,  in  others  by  the  bishop,  and  their  incomes 
vary  from  £500  to  £1,000  a  year.  The  stipend  of  a  dean  is  seldom 
less  than  £1,000  or  more  than  £2,000  a  year.  While  the  bishop  has 
direct  control  over  the  clergy  of  his  diocese,  he  has  no  authority 
over  the  dean  and  chapter  of  his  cathedral,  except  as  visitor  under 
then-  statutes.  There  is  indeed  a  special  throne  always  reserved  for 
the  bishop  in  the  cathedral,  and  to  this  he,  of  course,  has  access; 
but  he  cannot  occupy  the  pvdpit  except  by  invitation  from  the  dean 
and  chapter.  Generally,  the  relations  existing  between  the  bishop 
and  the  dean,  to  compare  them  to  secular  officers,  are  not  unlike 
those  of  the  admiral  and  the  captain  in  the  navy;  just  as  the  cap- 
tain is  absolutely  supreme  in  his  own  ship,  and  the  admiral  is  only 
intrusted  with  general  responsibility  for  the  movements  of  the 
squadron,  so  the  bishop  is  without  the  power  of  dictating  to  the 
dean  in  the  management  of  his  cathedral. 

The  rural  dean  has  not,  as  the  name  might  be  thought  to  imply, 
any  thing  in  common  with  the  dean  of  a  cathedral.  His  office  and 
his  rights  are  of  courtesy,  rather  than  of  law,  and  he  is  invested  with 
neither  more  nor  less  power  than  the  bishop  may  choose  to  give 
him.  He  convenes  meetings  of  his  clerical  brethren  for  any  dioce- 
san work,  but  his  summons  carries  no  kind  of  compulsion  with  it. 
The  rural  dean  will  also,  probably,  occasionally  report,  though  not 
according  to  any  official  form,  to  his  bishop,  generally  through  the 
archdeacon.  While  deans  and  archdeacons  are,  like  the  occupants 
of  the  episcopal  bench,  ex  officio  members  of  Convocation,  rural 
deans  have  no  such  distinction.  Their  jurisdiction  is  purely  local, 
each  archdeaconry  being  divided  into  a  certain  number  of  rural 
deaneries,  while  of  rural  deaneries  themselves  there  are  altogether 
in  England  and  Wales  about  six  hundred. 

For  a  brief  account  of  the  procedure  in  matters  of  ecclesiastical 
litigation  the  reader  may  be  referred  to  the  chapter  on  tin  English 
Law  Courts.  It  remains  to  say  a  few  words  on  the  subject  of  the 
30 


466  ENGLAND. 

appointment  of  the  different  dignitaries  of  the  English  Church  to 
then*  ecclesiastical  offices,  and  on  the  vexed  topic  of  patronage.  An 
archbishop  or  bishop  is  nominally  elected  in  most  cases  by  the  dean 
and  chapter  of  the  diocese  in  virtue  of  a  license  from  the  Crown, 
always  accompanied  by  a  royal  letter  missive,  which  contains  the 
name  of  the  person  whom  the  Sovereign  desires  to  have  elected, 
and  to  which  obedience  is  due  under  the  penalties  of  a  praemunire. 

Secondly,  as  regards  the  question  of  patronage.  The  right  of 
appointing  the  rector  or  vicar  of  a  parish  rests  with  the  possessor 
of  the  advowson,  who  is  termed  the  patron  of  the  living.  The  clerk 
in  holy  orders  who  is  presented  by  the  patron  to  a  benefice  has  to 
obtain  from  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  a  formal  institution,  which  the 
bishop  is  bound  to  grant,  unless  the  nominee  labors  under  any  legal 
disqualification  for  the  pastoral  office.  Advowsons  are  recognized 
by  the  law  as  property,  and  may  be  sold  like  any  other  property. 
The  nest  presentation  to  livings  may  also  be  sold,  provided  the 
benefice  be  not  vacant  at  the  time,  and  that  no  condition  as  to  res- 
ignation be  a  term  in  the  contract.  A  Commission  on  Church  Pat- 
ronage, however,  is  sitting  as  these  sheets  are  passing  through  the 
press,  and  it  has  been  conjectured  that  it  will  recommend  amongst 
other  things  the  abolition  of  the  sale  of  next  presentations. 

The  two  most  numerous,  influential,  and  generally  important  of 
Nonconformist  denominations  at  the  present  day  in  England  are 
undoubtedly  the  Independents  and  the  TVesleyans,  or,  as  they  are 
frequently  called,  the  Congregationahsts  and  the  Methodists.  The 
Independents  have  many  points  in  common  with  a  third  very  con- 
siderable sect,  scarcely  inferior  to  either,  both  as  regards  their  re- 
ligious creed  and  organization — the  Baptists.  The  Presbyterians, 
an  exceedingly  powerful  body  in  England  as  well  as  in  Scotland,  on 
the  other  hand,  possess  more  points  in  common  with  the  followers 
of  Wesley.  There  still  exists  at  the  jnTsent  day  an  historical  insti- 
tution of  Nonconformity  known  as  the  Three  Denominations.  These 
form  a  board  whose  origin  is  of  some  antiquity.  The  Independents, 
Baptists,  and  Presb3Tterians  sympathized  in  the  revolution  which 
placed  "William  III.  upon  the  throne  of  England,  and  took  an  active 
part  in  that  movement  which  led  to  the  accession  of  the  House  of 
Hanover.  In  recognition  of  their*  services  in  connection  with  these 
two  events,  they  were  accorded  the  privileges  common  to  bodies 
incorporated  by  Royal  Charter,  and  were  permitted  access  to  the 
Sovereign,  upon  the  same  conditions  and  occasions,  as  other  cor- 
porate institutions.  Till  within  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  there 
were  no  sectarian  jealousies  between  the  three,  and  the/ members  of 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND.  467 

each  wove  ('(intent  to  meei  and  act  together.  Then  came  a  char 
in  the  Presbyterian  community,  most  of  them  embracing  the  prin- 
ciples of  Socinianism.  The  consequence  was  thai  the  Independ- 
ents and  the  Baptists  objected  officially  to  appear  in  company  with 
Unitarians.  Afterwards  these  last  enlisted  the  sen  ices  of  Lord  John 
Russell  on  their  behalf,  and  received  through  liim  a  renewal  of  the 
privilege  they  had  before  enjoyed  as  members  of  the  Three  Denom- 
inations in  the  matter  of  approaching  the  Sovereign 

The  Independents  are  particularly  strong  in  the  great  towns  of 
England,  and  are  as  a  body  characterized  perhaps  by  the  display 
of  more  political  activity  than  is  usually  the  case  with  the  Wes- 
leyans  or  Baptists.  Thus  it  is  probable  that  the  Disestablishment 
agitation  has  been  promoted  mainly  among  the  Independent  body 
— a  proceeding  with  which  many  prominent  dissenting  clergymen 
decline  to  identify  themselves.  Mr.  Dale  of  Birmingham  and  Mr. 
Rogers  of  Clapham  may  be  regarded  as  amongst  the  chiefs  of  the 
anti-State  Church  movement.  These  gentlemen  undoubtedly  have 
great  influence  over  the  younger  ministers  and  members  of  their 
denomination,  and  a  new  impetus  is  given  by  them  to  the  pro- 
gramme of  the  Liberation  Society.  There  are,  of  course,  perhaps 
possibly  in  increasing  number,  strong  supporters  of  Disestablish- 
ment both  among  the  Wesleyans  and  the  Baptists,  but  neither  body 
is  associated  with  political  purposes  of  this  kind  to  the  same  degree 
as  the  Independents.  This  is  not  the  only  feature  which  distin- 
guishes the  Independents.  The  fundamental  principle  of  their  re- 
ligious creed — a  principle  which  has  given  the  name  to  the  denomi- 
nation— is  that  each  congregation  is  complete  in  itself,  is  an  entity 
to  be  controlled  entirely  by  its  own  members,  and  is  not  to  look  for 
any  discipline  or  government  from  outside.  In  this  respect  the 
Independents  and  Baptists  resemble  each  other.  There  is,  thus, 
infinitely  less  of  organization  possible  among  them  than  among  the 
Wesleyans,  the  center  of  whose  system — whence  come  the  orders 
that  regulate  all  the  parts — is  the  annually-held  Conference.  The 
differences  of  the  two  bodies  will,  perhaps,  best  be  understood,  if 
we  give  a  brief  account  of  the  successive  stages  through  which  a 
candidate  for  the  ministry,  in  each  sect  respectively,  has  to  pa 

A  young  man,  we  will  suppose,  born  in  the  Independent  body, 
or  entering  it  in  early  life,  feels  that  he  has  a  special  adaptability 
for  the  ministry:  what,  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  are  the  st.  pa 
that  he  would  take  completely  to  qualify  himself  for  the  office?  He 
would,  probably,  in  the  first  instance,  place  himself  in  communica- 
tion with  the  secretary  of  one  of  the  colleges  at  which  Independ- 


468  ENGLAND. 

ent  ministers  are  educated;  but  he  would  uot  be  received  at  this 
institution  before  he  had  satisfactorily  answered  questions  put  to 
him  by  its  authorities,  and  had  been  personally  examined  by  the 
members  of  the  college  council.  Having  satisfactorily  submitted 
to  this  ordeal,  he  would  be  received  on  probation  for  a  term  of 
three  months,  after  which  he  would  be  admitted  as  a  regular  stu- 
dent of  a  curriculum  that  would  extend  over  four  or  five  years.  Oi 
these  the  two  first  would,  in  some  cases,  be  devoted  to  supplement- 
ing the  defects  of  a  somewhat  imperfect  education,  and  would  be 
chiefly  occupied  with  general  studies,  such  as  classics  or  mathe- 
matics. His  earliest  purely  ministerial  training  would  consist  of  a 
course  of  sermon  writing,  the  discourses  thus  composed  being  read 
before  a  class,  and  criticised  by  a  teacher  of  homiletics.  The  last 
three  years  would  be  given  to  the  study  of  theological  dogmas,  and 
of  the  state  of  religious  opinion  generally,  both  in  past  and  present 
times.  Then  his  ministerial  career  would  actively  begin.  Having 
gone  through  his  college  course,  and  satisfied  his  instructors,  he 
would  be  considered  eligible  to  accept  as  a  probationer  any  oppor- 
tunity of  clerical  ministrations  which  might  present  itself.  Should 
the  congregation  like  him,  he  will  receive  an  offer  of  a  permanent 
engagement.  He  is,  in  fact,  chosen  to  the  pulpit  by  the  plebiscite 
taken  among  his  flock.  No  more  purely  democratic  system  in  an 
ecclesiastical  polity,  can  be  imagined.  Now  that  he  has  secured 
the  favor  of  a  congregation,  there  wiU  follow  his  formal  ordination, 
a  ceremony  which  may  be  profoundly  impressive,  or  entirely  the 
reverse,  according  to  the  power  and  eloquence  of  the  ministers  en- 
gaged in  its  celebration.  The  flock  of  the  future  pastor  is  assem- 
bled together,  and  one  minister  specially  chosen  for  the  occasion 
gives  a  statement  of  the  general  ecclesiastical  principles  of  the  body. 
Then  the  candidate  for  orders  is  expected,  in  reply  to  certain  ques- 
tions, to  give  a  full  and  clear  account,  first,  of  the  reasons  which 
make  him  wish  to  enter  the  ministry;  secondly,  of  his  preference 
for  the  Independent  form  of  Protestant  Nonconformity.  The  actual 
rite  of  ordination  is  of  extreme  simplicity.  One  of  the  officiating 
ministers  offers  a  prayer,  during  which  he  and  his  colleagues  place 
their  hands  on  the  head  of  the  candidate.  This  process  is  techni- 
cally known  as  the  laying  on  of  hands  by  the  presbytery,  and  is 
maintained  by  some  clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England,  notably 
by  Dean  Stanley,  to  be  the  true  mode  of  performing  the  function. 
In  some  cases  this  part  of  the  ceremony  is  waived.  A  charge  deliv- 
ered to  the  new  minister  follows,  in  which  his  duties  are  pointed 
out  and  the  solemn  responsibility  under  which  he  lies  for  their 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND.  »469 

proper  discharge  impressed  upon  him.  In  a  second  address  the 
members  of  Lis  flock  are  reminded  thai  thej  have  duties,  neithei 
less  definite  nor  sacred.  Very  much  the  same  ceremony  is  gone 
through  in  the  case  of  Baptist  and  Presbyterian  ministers,  and  it' 

the  officiating  ministers,  on  the  occasion,  are  nun  of  considerable 
gii'ts,  the  effect  produced  is  very  striking. 

Once  the  minister  has  been  ordained  and  appointed  to  liis  con- 
gregation, it  is  solely  and  exclusively  with  his  congregation  t li.it  he 
is  concerned.  "Where  harmony  exists  between  a  minister  and  Lis 
church  the  moral  influence  he  has  over  them  is  very  great.  He  will 
rise  or  fall,  succeed  or  fail,  in  proportion  as  he  does  or  does  not 
happen  to  satisfy  his  people.  It  is  thus  apparent  that  the  whole 
success  of  the  Independent  system  is  contingent  on  a  good  under- 
standing between  pastor  and  nock,  and  it  works  well  or  ill,  accord- 
ing as  the  two  parties  to  the  contract  display  both  temper  and 
judgment.  It  does  not,  however,  follow  that  an  Independent  con- 
gregation will  always  be  able  to  dismiss  its  pastor  at  will.  In  the 
case  of  some  chapels  there  are  trust-deeds  which  specially  secure 
this  power  of  dismissal  to  the  congregation,  in  others  there  may  be 
legal  difficulties  in  the  way  of  ejection.  The  tendency  of  things 
amongst  the  Independent  body  seems  to  be  in  the  direction  of  more 
concentrated  action.  There  are  several  eminent  Independents  who 
advocate  closer  bonds  of  connection  between  the  churches  of  the 
denomination,  and  though  this  claim  is  steadily  resisted  by  many 
stanch  members  of  the  society,  who  believe  that  without  the  abso- 
lute autonomy  of  each  congregation  the  Independent  system  would 
come  to  nothing,  there  is  a  gradually  increasing  number  of  those 
who  hold  that  more  general  organization  is  wanted,  and  who  advo- 
cate particularly  a  general  sustentation  fund  to  be  controlled  by  a 
presiding  representative  bod}'.  As  it  is,  the  Independents  have 
many  county  associations,  from  which  the  Congregational  Union. 
which  is  the  combined  society  of  these  associations,  is  chosen.  This 
Union  holds  two  great  meetings  every  year,  one  in  London,  the 
other  in  some  provincial  city  of  prime  importance.  Under  the  ex- 
isting regime  the  Congregational  Union  is  a  purely  consultative  ami 
deliberative  body.  It  carries  with  it  no  legislative  power,  and  it  is. 
therefore,  quite  as  impotent  to  change  the  practice  of  Congregation- 
alism, except  by  purely  moral  influences,  as  Convocation  is  to  revo- 
lutionize the  laws  of  the  Church.  There  is  some  disposition,  how- 
ever, to  bestow  more  power  upon  the  Congregational  Onion,  and  its 

exercise   may  come   a8  the   results  of  its  agency   in   connection   with 

the  management  of  the  new  sustentation  fund. 


470  ENGLAND. 

Nor  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  Independents,  or,  for  the  mat- 
ter of  that,  the  members  of  any  other  Nonconformist  sect,  are  en- 
tirely undistracted  by  internal  differences  and  controversies,  though 
they  differ  from  those  which  agitate  the  Church  of  England.  Thus, 
it  is  a  moot  point  what  is  the  exact  position  of  deacons  in  an  Inde- 
pendent congregation.  As  matters  are,  generally,  they  have  no 
strictly  spiritual  duties  to  discharge,  their  great  business  is  to  at- 
tend to  the  pecuniary  affairs  of  a  congregation  and  to  the  care  of 
the  poor.  There  are,  too,  slight  differences  in  the  forms  of  worship, 
and  in  the  mode  of  admitting  communicants.  The  circumstance 
that  there  is  in  the  nature  of  things  a  stronger  bond  between  the 
Independent  pastor  and  his  flock  than  between  the  English  clergy- 
man and  his  congregation  may  perhaps  tend  to  minimize  such  con- 
troversies; probably,  for  instance,  there  would  never  be  witnessed 
the  spectacle  of  an  Independent  minister  who  deliberately  opposed 
himself  to  the  ascertained  wishes  and  convictions  of  his  conereea- 
tion.  At  the  same  time  there  are  divergences  of  view  as  to  the  limit 
within  which  the  decorative  element  is  permissible ;  but  these  diver- 
gences do  not  involve  the  same  differences  of  fundamental  principle 
as  differences  of  ritual  do  in  the  Church  of  England,  because  all  In- 
dependents repudiate  the  idea  of  sacerdotalism. 

When  we  come  to  the  Wesleyans  we  have  to  deal  with  a  Non- 
conformist body  which  differs  in  numerous  important  matters  from 
the  Independents.  The  great  feature  of  the  system  is  a  central  or- 
ganization invested  with  a  power,  not  indeed  absolutely  supreme, 
but  final  on  appeal;  in  other  words,  supreme  just  as  a  board  of  trus- 
tees is  supreme  for  the  specific  provisions  of  its  trust.  The  name 
given  to  this  central  body  is  the  Conference,  whose  powers  are  ex- 
ercised in  (1)  jurisdiction  over  its  own  members,  (2)  appointment  of 
ministers,  (3)  occupancy  of  chapels  by  ministers  in  connection  with 
them,  (4)  the  preservation  of  sound  doctrine.  Here  it  is  not  merely 
the  tradition  of  Wesley  which  discovers  itself,  but  the  letter  of  Wes- 
ley's injunctions  which  is  followed.  That  gifted  man  who,  to  his 
spiritual  eminence,  added  a  decided  assumption  of  autocratic  power, 
confided  plenary  authority  over  the  sect  which  he  had  founded  in 
these  duties  just  named,  to  one  hundred  ministers.  These  one  hun- 
dred form  the  Conference  in  law,  but  the  whole  body  of  ministers, 
or  as  many  of  them  as  are  gathered  in  the  annual  session,  are  the 
Conference  in  fact — the  legal  Conference  never  disannulling  then* 
acts,  and  only  confirming  them  to  render  them  legal.  Thus  far  of 
purely  ecclesiastical  matters.  In  matters  economical,  financial,  and 
generally  administrative,  a  representative  number  of  ministers  and 


AELIGIOCS   ENGLAND.  171 

an  equal  number  of  laymen  constitute  the  Conference.  Hence,  the 
five-score  are  ;i  sort  of  upper  House,  for  the  ratification  of  decisions 
arrived  at  in  common  sessions,  with  a  large  number  of  their  breth- 
ren. It  is  an  error  to  suppose,  as  is  sometimes  Btated,  thai  the  Con- 
ference initiates  policy.  It  rarely  initiates  any  thing.  Und<  r  the 
general  laws  by  which  the  whole  Conference  is  governed,  th<  r< 
first,  the  circuit,  or  separate  pastorate,  in  which  the  chief  courl  is 
the  quarterly  meeting,  composed  of  the  pastors  and  a  large  number, 
from  twenty  to  sixty,  according  to  the  size  and  inlluence  of  the  cir- 
cuit, of  lay  members.  This  court  manages  all  circuit  hinds,  paya 
the  minister's  stipend,  and  provides  generally  for  the  carrying  on  of 
efficient  and  orderly  service  within  the  circuit  bounds.  Secondly, 
there  is  the  district  meeting,  or  synod,  which  is  composed  of  the 
ministers  within  a  given  geographical  radius,  fur  purposes  connected 
with  ecclesiastical  and  pastoral  administration,  and  of  two  la\  repre- 
sentatives from  each  circuit,  when  financial  and  economical  ques- 
tions are  under  consideration.  Lastly,  there  is  the  Conference, 
whose  constitution  has  been  already  described.  The  Conference  - 
as  a  Conference — has  no  funds,  nor  control  of  funds.  All  the  pew- 
rents  are  under  the  direction  of  the  trustees  of  the  various  chapels, 
and  are  by  them  appropriated — sometimes  by  grant  to  the  circuit 
funds,  from  which  the  ministers  receive  their  stipends,  though  not 
always,  and  occasionally  in  other  ways.  In  reference  to  c na- 
tional funds — i.  e.,  funds  raised  for  foreign  missions,  home  missions, 
schools,  Arc,  &c, — these  are  disbursed  under  the  direction  of  man- 
aging committees.  Clergymen  composing  the  Conference  are  el.  cted 
by  the  clergy  of  the  entire  body,  who,  in  the  lirsf  instance  make  their 
power  felt  in  the  district,  and  after  the  district  in  the  synod  which 
comprehends  a  group  of  districts;  but  no  final  action  in  any  grave 
measure,  whatever  the  congregation  it  affects,  can  be  taken  without 
the  approval  of  the  Conference. 

The  second  great  feature  in  the  organization  of  Wesleyanism  is 
the  itinerant  system,  in  virtue  of  which  no  minister  is  permitted  to 
stay  more  than  three  years  in  the  same  neighborhood.  There  are 
both  obvious  advantages  and  disadvantages  hound  up  with  this  sys- 
tem. "While  the  limitations  imposed  by  the  laws  of  the  society  on 
the  possible  tenure  by  the  clergyman  of  a  district  certainh  prevent 
any  congregation  from  what  has  been  called  "immersion  in  the 
stagnant  pool  of  a  single  mind,"  there  is  the  obvious  disadvai 
that  the  minister  d>es  not  form  many  pastoral  attachment  I  >ugh 
the  fact  that  every  congregation  is  encouraged  t<>  issue  imitations  to 
ministers  is  a  guarantee    of   the    interest    which    congregations    are 


472  ENGLAND. 

likely  to  take  in  their  jmrely  spiritual  affairs,  the  relation  thus  de- 
veloped between  teacher  and  taught  necessarily  lack  certain  ele- 
ments of  intimacy,  whose  absence  is  recognized  by  some  "Wesleyans 
themselves  as  an  inherent  defect  in  the  system. 

The  unit  of  government  amongst  the  Wesleyans  is  the  circuit,  as 
represented  on  the  occasion  of  its  quarterly  meetings,  every  circuit 
consisting  of  a  certain  number  of  congregations  grouped  together, 
both  on  geographical  consideration  and  also  according  to  number. 
No  candidate  can  even  so  far  take  active  steps  to  enter  the  Wesley  an 
ministry  as  to  go  to  one  of  the  colleges  of  the  body  without  having 
been  duly  recommended  by  the  quarterly  meeting  of  that  circuit 
within  which  his  own  congregation  comes.  At  this  meeting  not 
only  are  the  local  ministers  convened,  but  representatives  of  the 
laity,  as  well  as  lay-helpers  and  class-leaders,  who  are  ex  officio 
members  of  the  periodically-held  assembly.  Again,  before  a  young 
man  can  even  arrive  at  the  stage  of  candidature,  he  must  have  had 
some  practice  as  a  local  preacher,  and  the  common  voice  of  his 
neighborhood  must  have  decided  that  he  possesses  certain  indis- 
putable rhetorical  gifts.  Here  we  may  see  what  we  have  seen 
already  in  the  case  of  the  Independents,  the  recognition  of  the 
principle  that  the  qualifications  of  a  minister  must  either  be  de- 
cided directly  by  his  flock,  or  indirectly  by  their  immediate  repre- 
sentatives; we  may  also  notice  that  this  arrangement  does  furnish, 
what  the  Church  of  England  does  not,  some  guarantee  that  the 
future  minister  has,  in  a  measure,  the  gift  of  speech. 

The  candidate  for  the  Wesleyan  ministry  has  no  sooner  satisfied 
the  requirements  of  the  quarterly  meeting  of  the  circuit  than  he 
comes  before  a  judicial  tribunal  composed  of  representatives  of  the 
aggregate  of  several  circuits,  in  other  words  the  district  meeting. 
Before  these  judges  he  has  again  to  preach  and  to  answer  a  variety 
of  questions.  If  he  satisfies  the  conditions  of  this  test  he  is  sent 
before  the  Conference,  whether  that  august  body  may  happen  to  be 
holding  its  sitting  in  London  or  in  a  provincial  town.  Shoidd  the 
verdict  of  the  Conference  be  favorable,  the  candidate  will  proceed 
in  due  time  to  the  College  of  the  community  at  Didsbury,  or  Head- 
ingley,  or  Richmond.  At  one  of  these  institutions,  at  which  his  first 
three  months  are  probationary,  he  will  probably  spend  three  years, 
and  he  will  leave  them  only  after  he  has  been  pronounced,  as  the 
result  of  a  searching  examination,  to  be  a  fit  and  proper  person  for 
the  ministry.  Nor  is  the  probationary  period  of  his  career  yet  at 
an  end.  Every  man  remains  in  the  ministry  for  four  years  on  trial, 
the  thud  year  of  college  residence  which  has  been  already  completed 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND.  17:5 

counting  as  one  year,  while  the  ordination  ceremony,  which  is  prac- 
tically the  same  as  in  the  case  of  the  Independents,  performed  before 
that  period  is  not  considered  complete.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  either  among  the  Independents  or  the  Wesleyans  this  some- 
what elaborate  process  is  always  exactly  followed.  There  is  nothing 
to  prevent  any  member  of  an  Independent  community  who  can 
a  congregation  to  listen  to  him  or  her,  to  stand  as  a  minister,  while 
amongst  the  "Wesleyans  the  deficiency  of  college  accommodation  fre- 
quently compels  the  Conference  to  accept  as  qualified  candidates  for 
orders  those  who  have  not  gone  through  the  whole  of  the  prescribed 
routine.  It  thus  follows  that  the  future  clergy  of  both  orders  have 
scarcely  ever  lived  purely  student  lives.  They  have  almost  always 
learnt  the  mysteries  of  some  handicraft,  and  are,  in  the  majority  of 
instances,  cap>able  of  supporting  themselves  independently  of  their 
spiritual  profession.  Amongst  a  fewWesleyan  societies  there  exists 
a  pecuniary  fund  for  common  purposes;  all  the  pew  rents  and  volun- 
tary subscriptions  within  the  limits  of  any  circuit  are  paid  into  tho 
hands  of  a  trustee  steward,  who  accounts  to  the  trustees  for  their 
disbursement.  In  addition  to  this,  there  is  a  district  fund  which 
contributes  to  the  support  of  circuits  in  neighborhoods  that  are  not 
able  to  support  ministers  of  their  own. 

The  missionary  organization  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  which  is 
the  only  organization  of  that  church  existing  in  the  British  Empire, 
is  to  be  carefully  distinguished  from  that  known  in  countries  where 
the  whole  of  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent  are  in  force.  This 
— the  missionary  system — is  dependent  directly  on  the  sacred  con- 
gregation of  Propaganda,  presided  over  by  a  Cardinal  Prefect,  to 
which  all  matters  in  partibus  infiddium  are  in  the  last  instance  re- 
ferred, and  which  may  be  described  as  a  board  of  control,  with 
jurisdiction  over  the  missionary  domains  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

Previous  to  1850,  the  Papal  authority  was  exercised  through 
vicars  apostolic.  That  year  witnessed  the  establishment  of  a  regu- 
lar hierarchy  in  England,  and  hence  the  ill-starred  Ecclesiastical 
Titles'  Act.  At  the  present  moment  England  is  divided  into  thir- 
teen dioceses,  one  of  which — -that  of  Westminster  is  the  arch 
diocese,  while  the  others  are  suffragan  districts.  Every  bishop  has 
his  own  chapter  of  canons,  who  are  his  privy  councilors,  and  pos- 
sesses the  right  to  convoke  his  own  synod.  This  canonical  body  is 
presided  over  in  England  by  a  provost,  and  its  two  chid'  members 
I  are  the  Canon  Theologic  and  the  Canon  Penitentiary.  These  can- 
ons constitute  a  corporate!  body,  electing  a  certain  proportion  of 
their  own  members,  while  some  are  the  nominees  of  the  bishop, 


474  ENGLAND. 

and  others  of  the  Pope,  according  to  the  month  in  which,  by  the 
death  of  a  canon,  a  vacancy  occurs.  They  are  also  liable  to  be  con- 
sisted by  the  bishop,  who,  though  in  some  cases  bound  to  seek, 
does  not  necessarily  follow  their  advice.  Moreover,  when  a  va- 
cancy in  a  bishopric  occurs,  the  canons  name  three  persons  as 
suitable  candidates,  the  final  selection  being  usually  made  at  Rome. 
If  any  of  the  inferior  clergy  appeal  against  the  order  of  their  bishop, 
it  is  to  Rome  that  that  appeal  goes.  Monsignori  are  persons  be- 
longing to  the  Papal  Court,  the  more  important  class  of  them  being 
the  Pope's  domestic  prelates. 

Over  and  above  this  regular  organization  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  non-Catholic  countries,  there  are  the  religious  orders, 
such  as  Dominicans,  Franciscans,  Benedictines,  Carmelites,  Cister- 
cians, and  Jesuits.  Each  of  these  is  in  the  possession  of  special 
and  accumulated  privileges.  Directly  subjected  to  generals  or 
other  heads  at  Rome,  they  are  all  of  them  to  a  great  extent  free 
from  the  internal  ecclesiastical  government  of  the  countries  in 
which  they  may  be  placed.  Each  of  these  orders  has  a  provincial 
and  local  superior,  who  is  invested  with  ample  powers.  The  Ora- 
torians  are  not  so  much  an  ecclesiastical  order  as  a  congregation  of 
secular  priests — every  priest,  it  will  be  understood,  being  a  secular 
one,  if  he  does  not  belong  to  some  order — who  have  organized 
themselves  into  a  religious  community. 

As  regards  the  numbers  and  the  influence  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic Church  in  England,  it  will  be  found  that  so  far  as  the  former  is 
concerned,  its  figures  have  remained  almost  the  same  for  manv 
years.  Numerically,  Roman  Catholics  have  not  increased  in  propor- 
tion to  the  population,  to  which  it  stands  now  in  the  relation  of 
one  tenth.  But  while  the  Church  of  Rome  in  England  has  only 
managed  just  to  hold  its  own,  it  has  not  retrograded  in  power. 
Probably  it  has  as  little  now  of  influence  as  ever  over  the  English 
middle  classes,  but  has  been  recruited  in  a  marked  degree  from 
the  higher  classes  of  the  population;  at  the  same  time,  too,  its  or- 
ganization has  improved.  It  has  more  schools  and  better  schools, 
but  in  the  direction  of  education  much  has  yet  to  be  done,  and  the 
stanchest  Roman  Catholics  will  be  the  first  to  admit  that,  always 
excepting  the  primary  schools,  the  machinery  of  Roman  Catholic 
education  is  at  the  present  moment  sadly  deficient.  The  attempted 
establishment  and  collapse  of  a  "Catholic  University"  College  in 
Kensington  furnished  a  test  of  the  reality  of  the  demand  for  a 
higher  education  amongst  the  Catholic  youth  of  England.  As  the 
future  of  the  secondary  and  higher  education  of  Roman  Catholics 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND.  17". 

in  England  is  full  of  great  possibilities,  so  its  present  is  felt  1"  be 
far  from  satisfactory. 

The  Jews  are  a  body  of  far  too  great  importance  in  England 
elsewhere,  to  render  it  possible  to  dispense  with  some  notice  of  their 
religious  organization  in  this  chapter.  The  Hebrew  race,  which,  in 
the  Russian  Empire  and  in  Poland,  numbers  live  millions,  in  the 
Austrian  Empire  from  120,000  to  180,000,  in  New  York  alone  more 
than  100,000,  has  in  the  British  Empire  from  80,000  to  90,000,  of 
whom  upwards  of  G5,000  are  within  the  metropolitan  radius  of  Lon- 
don. On  the  influence  that  this  extraordinary  people  exercises,  in 
England  as  elsewhere,  and  of  which  its  numerical  strength  is  only 
a  faint  indication,  it  is  not  necessary  to  dwell.  The  quest  ions  here 
to  consider  are  the  religious  organization  of  the  Jews  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  and  closely  allied  with  this,  as  is  natural  under  a  theo- 
cratic system,  their  social  condition  and  general  characteristics. 

The  same  line  of  cleavage  that  traverses  most  other  religious 
societies  at  the  present  day  is  discernible  among  the  members  of 
the  Jewish  persuasion.  On  the  one  hand,  there  are  the  representa- 
tives of  orthodoxy,  who  profoundly  venerate  dogmatic  tradition  and 
prescription,  and  who  solemnly  observe  with  exact  fidelity  the  eccle- 
siastical ritual.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  party  of  those  who 
claim  a  wide  latitude  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Mosaic  law.  and 
who  hold  that  many  usages,  enjoined  by  the  rabbinical  doctors  of 
their  church,  have  been  rendered  obsolete  bv  the  altered  condition 
of  the  times.  This  feud  between  authority  and  private  judgment 
has  divided  the  Jews  in  England  into  two  different  groups  of  con- 
gregations. The  Rabbinical  writings,  with  the  doctrinal  overgrowth 
that  has  been  accumulated  upon  them,  a  consequence  of  the  labors 
of  successive  generations  of  expositors,  are  to  the  Hebrew  Church 
what  the  Fathers  are  to  the  Christian.  The  laws  of  Moses  hav< 
been  elaborated  in  this  manner  into  a  complex  system  of  ceremonial 
and  faith,  too  exacting  in  its  demands  for  many  who  are  profoundly 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  central  articles  of  Judaism.  In  this 
way  the  Commentary,  or  to  speak  of  it  by  its  Hebrew  name.  "The 
Gemara,"  has  outgrown  the  text  or  "Mishna,"  which  two,  taken  to- 
gether, constitute  the  "Talmud."  The  library  of  Rabbinical  inter- 
pretation has  acquired  in  some  quarters  a  sanctity  equal  or  superior 
to  the  Five  Books  of  Moses,  and  the  point  at  issue  between  the  two 
|  sects,  at  the  present  day  is.  what  measure  of  obedience  is  due  to  the 
Rabbinical  writings.  These  internal  differences  in  England  date 
•  from  the  year  1841,  up  to  which  time  the  English  synagogue  was 
an  exact  copy  of  that  of  the  Middle  Ages.     Attempts,  indeed,  had 


476  ENGLAND. 

periodically  been  made  to  modify  the  ritual  in  a  manner  suitable  to 
the  requirements  of  the  age ;  but  these  efforts  failed,  and  it  was  only 
when  a  Reformed  English  Synagogue  was  opened  in  Burton  Street 
that  any  thing  was  actually  done.  This  movement  resulted  in  an 
open  schism,  which  was  not  unattended  by  much  bitterness;  the 
decree  of  excommunication  was  passed  upon  the  new  congregation 
and  its  minister,  still  the  heretical  leaven  spread,  and  the  smaller 
synagogue  was  soon  exchanged  for  a  larger  one.  "Though  we  are," 
writes  Professor  Marks,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  movement,  "  still 
divided  on  questions  purely  and  wholly  ritual,  we  are  nevertheless 
drawn  closely  together  by  a  common  belief  and  by  mutual  sympa- 
thies; and  for  all  communal  purposes  we  act  as  one  inseparable 
brotherhood."  It  was  anticipated  by  some  that  the  ultimate  residt 
of  this  split  in  the  Jewish  community,  would  be  the  secession  of  the 
reformers  to  the  Christian  Church.  Nothing  of  the  sort  has  fol- 
lowed, and  Judaism  has  generally  revived  since  the  congregation  of 
British  Jews  was  organized.  The  subdivision  of  the  services  which 
were,  and  among  the  ultra-Rabbinical  Jews  still  are,  intolerably  long, 
attracts  a  larger  number  of  worshippers,  and  the  women's  galleries, 
rarely  attended  in  former  days,  except  in  high  festivals,  are  now 
well  filled  on  every  Sabbath. 

Though  the  ritual  practice  of  the  Jews  has  always  differed  at 
successive  epochs,  their  religious  belief  is  identical  in  all  essential 
respects  with  that  which  has  universally  prevailed.  The  Jews,  in 
England  as  elsewhere,  assign  the  first  place  in  the  scale  of  Biblical 
sanctity  to  the  Books  of  Moses,  the  second  to  the  Prophetical  "Writ- 
ings, the  last  to  the  other  scriptural  works — the  Psalms,  Proverbs, 
Job,  Daniel,  and  historical  records — all  of  which  are  generally  de- 
scribed as  "  Hagiography."  These  last  are  not  held  to  be  inspired 
in  the  same  sense  as  the  laws  of  Moses  and  the  messages  and  pre- 
dictions of  the  prophets,  which,  according  to  orthodox  Judaism,  are 
full  of  the  spirit  of  verbal  inspiration.  Mendelssohn  remarked  that 
in  the  whole  Mosaic  law  there  was  not  a  single  precept  saying  "  Thou 
shalt  believe  this  or  that,"  or  "  Thou  shalt  not  believe  it,"  and  gave 
it,  as  his  opinion,  that  Judaism  was  a  system  without  an  idea  of 
articles  or  oaths  of  religion.  Generally  the  Jews  in  England,  at  the 
present  day,  are  characterized  by  that  spirit  of  toleration  which  the 
remark  of  Mendelssohn  would  lead  us  to  expect.  As  they  agree 
mutually  to  differ  amongst  themselves  without  any  reciprocal  invo- 
cation of  the  penalties  of  Divine  vengeance,  so  they  hold  that  salva- 
tion belongs  to  all  those  outside  their  own  pale  who  keep  the  moral 
law  of  Moses;  in  other  words,  who  conform  to  those  ethical  sane- 


HE  LIS  IOCS   ENGLAND.  \ 


i  i 


tions  which  arc  recognized  as  binding  by  the  whole  human  r  . 
For  themselves,  they  consider  it  incumbent  to  observe  as  much  of 
the  ceremonial  pari  of  the  ritual  code  of  the  Pentateuch  as  La  pra< 
cable  out  of  Palest  inc.    There  is,  moreover,  a  strong  feeling  amen 
them  that  their  marriages  should  be  confined  to  members  of  their 
own  race  and  creed,  but  the  national  and  the  religious  sentiment  - 

have  each  of  them  an  independent    existence  of  their  own,  and    they 

admit  that  every  human  being,  of  every  race  or  creed,  who  is  mor- 
ally just,  stands  in  the  same  relation  as  themselves,  here  and  h< 
after,  to  the  Universal  Father  of  man.  Even  at  the  lime  when  the 
storm  of  persecution  raged  most  fiercely  against  them  the  doctrine 
was  taught  that  the  pious  of  all  nations  would  enjoy  everlasting  be- 
atitude in  the  world  to  come. 

It  would  be  scarcely  rash  to  say  that  a  considerable  number  of 
English  Jews  are  simple  theists,  who,  over  and  above  the  faith  of 
Theism,  believe  that  the  accident  of  their  race  places  them  under  an 
obligation  to  observe  certain  rites.  They  do  not  hold  that  tl. 
rites  are  compulsory  upon  those  who  are  not  descendants  of  Abra- 
ham, and  for  this  reason  amongst  others,  the  most  ferveni  of  Jewish 
religionists  are  not  proselytizers.  Cases  in  which  applications  are 
made  to  join  the  Jewish  Church  are  more  frequent  than  might  be 
thought,  though  probably  in  few  of  these  can  the  motive  be  attrib- 
uted to  disinterested  religious  conviction.  The  Rabbi  who  is  im- 
portuned to  receive  Christian  converts  to  the  Synagogue  protests  in 
the  first  instance  against  the  step,  and  says,  in  so  many  words. 
you  believe  in  and  worship  the  one  and  only  God,  refrain  in  thought 
and  in  deed  from  idolatry,  and  keep  the  moral  law,  which  consists 
in  loving  your  fellow-creature  as  yourself,  we  are  taught  to  believe 
that  you,  as  a  non-Israelite,  will  be  regarded  as  one  with  the  most 
pious  Jew  by  Him  that  readeth  all  hearts."  If  after  this  the  ap- 
plicant persists  in  the  request,  and  solemnly  declares  that  it  is  not 
prompted  by  any  carnal  desire  or  prospect  of  worldly  gain,  bu 
the  result  of  mature  and  sincere  conviction,  the  Rabbi  appoints  a 
/  term  for  the  religious  instruction  of  the  neophyte,  and  at  its  expira- 
'  tion  reluctantly  receives  him  into  the  Jewish  community. 

It  may  safely  be  said  that  the  doctrine  of  the  restoration,  I 
ingathering,  that  is,  of  the  Jews  of  all  nations  to  Palestine,  has  no 
practical  reality  with  them.  A  spiritual  influence  over  the  thoughts 
of  the  pious  Hebrew  it  may,  perhaps,  exercise;  but  even  in  this 
it  suggests  rather  the  last  act  in  a  grand  ami  mysterious  drama,  an 
act  which  will  be  witnessed  only  when  the  present  univi  rse  is  on  tlu.' 
eve  of  dissolution.      So  far  as  his  actual  social  and  political  relations 


478  ENGLAND. 

are  concerned,  the  restoration  is  to  the  Jew  very  much  what  the 
millennium  is  to  the  Christian.  Both  beliefs,  it  is  to  be  noticed,  had 
their  origin  in  much  the  same  circumstances  of  persecution  and 
oppression.  As  the  majority  of  Christians  suffered  the  cherished 
doctrine  of  the  millennium  to  recede  into  the  background  when  they 
I  found  themselves  in  security  and  power,  so  most  modern  Jews,  as 
they  rose  in  the  scale  of  citizenship  and  prosperity,  withdrew  their 
eyes  from  the  belief  once  firmly  held,  that  their  entire  race  would 
meet  together  on  the  soil  of  Palestine.  As  the  Jews  are  thus  prac- 
tically absorbed  in  the  general  mass  of  the  English  population,  or 
of  the  population  of  any  other  country  where  they  ma}'  chance  to 
be,  so  have  the  tribal  differences  amongst  the  Jews  themselves  dis- 
appeared. Indeed,  the  only  tribe  practically  known  among  the 
English  Jews  is  that  of  Judah,  which,  however,  includes  some  of 
the  tribes  of  Benjamin  and  Levi.  Wherever  the  name  Cohen  is 
found,  one  may  be  certain  that  one  has  lighted  upon  a  descendant 
of  Aaron. 

The  distinctly  religious  organization  of  the  Jews  for  the  purposes 
of  public  worship  may  be  said  to  proceed  upon  much  the  same  lines 
as  that  of  the  Independents.  In  some  cases,  indeed,  the  congre- 
gations group  themselves  into  a  confederation,  and  recognize,  as 
extending  over  the  whole  number,  the  authority  of  the  Rabbi.  Al- 
though the  Rabbi  has  no  power  of  enforcing  his  authority,  the  con- 
gregations placing  themselves  under  his  guidance  leave  to  him  and 
his  ecclesiastical  coadjutors  all  matters  relating  to  the  ritual.  This, 
at  least,  is  the  rule.  But  there  are  occasions  when  the  wardens  and 
council  of  a  synagogue  undertake  to  introduce  changes  of  a  minor 
character  without  consulting  the  Rabbi,  and  without  holding  them- 
selves obliged  to  do  so.  What  portions  of  the  service  are  to  be  read, 
and  what  chanted,  are  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  minister  in  con- 
sultation with  the  wardens.  The  West  London  Synagogue  of  Brit- 
ish Jews  is  the  only  metropolitan  synagogue  where  there  is  an  organ. 
In  others  choirs  are  formed,  but  they  are  not  accompanied  by  instru- 
mental music. 

A  specially  ordained  priesthood  is  what  Judaism  can  hardly  be 
said  to  have.  "  Whatever  may  be  urged  to  the  contrary,"  declares 
Professor  Marks,  after  having  cited  a  number  of  historical  passages 
bearing  upon  the  point  by  those  who  promote  Ecclesiasticism,  and 
to  raise  above  its  proper  level  the  seat  of  priestly  authority,  the  his- 
torical fact  remains  that,  from  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century, 
all  power  of  authorizing  teachers  in  Israel,  by  superincumbence  of 
hands,  became  extinct,   and   since  that  time  the  only  recognized 


KELIGIOCS    ENGLAND.  IT1.) 

authority  for  electing  and  instituting  ministers  has  redded  is  the 
congregations  themselvea     There  is.  however,  a  special  course  oi 

education  prescribed  for  the  ministers  of  the  Jewish  religion,  though 
it  is  very  far  from  being  uniformly  followed.  !n  the  West  London 
Synagogue  of  British  Jews,  over  which  Professor  Marks  presides,  a 
special  fund  has  been  established   for  training  candidates  for  the 

]  ministry,  after  they  have  taken  their  Bachelor  of  Arts  degree  as  it 
is  considered  exceedingly  desirable  they  should  do,  at  the  University 
of  London — at  the  theological  seminary  at  Breslau  But,  for  the 
most  part,  the  Jewish  clergy  come  from  the  Jewish  College,  which 
has  contributed  many  distinguished  graduates  to  the  Academy  in 
Gower  Street.  Education  has  advanced  with  rapid  strides  among 
the  Jewish  community  in  the  last  few  years,  and  it  may  be  said  with 
some  confidence  that  there  is  no  child  of  either  sex  anion,"-  English 
Jews,  of  the  age  of  nine  or  ten,  who  cannot  both  read  and  write. 

.  The  Jews'  Free  School  in  Spitalfields  provides  for  the  instruction  of 
more  than  two  thousand  pupils,  half,  at  least,  of  whom  are  of  foreign 
parentage,  and  there  are  many  other  institutions  both  in  London 
and  elsewhere  of  almost  equal  excellence.  Nor  are  the  provisions 
that  exist  for  the  bodily  welfare  of  the  poorer  members  of  the  com- 
munity less  effective.     There  are  few  instances  in  which  the  relief 

\of  Jew  paupers  is  left  to  the  ratepayers,  and  there  is  amongst  the 
Jews  a  Board  of  Guardians  chosen  exclusively  from  the  members  of 
their  own  community,  who  attend  to  all  cases  of  distress  and  admin- 
ister the  funds  which  are  generously  contributed.  "Want  and  men- 
dicity still  prevail,  but  the  latter  is  almost  entirely  confined  to  the 
foreign  Jews,  who  find  their  most  profitable  asylum  in  England.  A 
great  deal  of  the  Jewish  pauperism  in  this  country  comes  to  as  from 
Russia,  and  is  the  result  of  a  system  under  which  conscription  is 
universal,  and  no  one  not  professing  the  creed  of  Christianity  can 
rise  above  the  ranks.  The  society  which  exists  in  England  for  the 
Conversion  of  Jews  to  Christianity  acts,  in  not  a  few  cases,  as  an 
inducement  to  professional  pauperism;  nor  is  there  anymore  com- 
mon threat  with  which  a  Jew  beggar  supplements  his  prayer  for 
alms  when  made  to  one  of  the  wealthy  members  of  his  community, 
than  that,  if  relief  is  denied,  he  will  go  over  to  the  conversion  Soci- 
ety. Many  of  the  abuses  consecpient  upon  the  lavishness  of  Jewish 
charity  have  been  effectually  prevented  by  the  establishment  oi  the 
Jewish  Board  of  Guardians. 

It  has  been  already  said,  and  it  may  be  cited  as  a  proof  of  the 
religious  activity  and  earnestness  of  the  age,  that  the  spirit  of  or- 
ganization is  visible  within  the  pale  of  every  creed     <  >n  all  sides 


480  ENGLAND. 

there  is  huriying  to  and  fro,  much  parade  of  the  machinery  of  faith, 
much  insistence  upon  its  routine  business,  and  its  spectacular  effects. 
But  the  cpiestion  arises,  How  far  all  this  can  rightly  be  interpreted 
as  a  healthy  sign  ?  May  not  the  very  littleness  of  the  controversies 
anionq-  the  members  of  the  Anglican  communion,  noticed  at  the 
beginning  of  this  chapter,  imply  a  diminution  of  the  vital  spirit? 
The  superficial  energy  is  there,  but  where,  it  may  be  asked,  are  the 
deep  belief  and  the  inspiring  convictions  which  animated  the  older 
controversialists '?  It  is  unfortunately  not  to  be  doubted  that  excess- 
ive organization  is  an  omen  of  decay  as  well  as  a  sign  of  growth. 
The  excessive  organization  of  Imperial  Rome  coincided  with  the 
lamentable  atrophy  of  the  old  lioinan  spirit.  Again,  it  may  be 
doubted  how  far  the  point  to  which  toleration  has  been  carried  is 
at  all  a  proof  of  that  spread  of  conviction  which  is  likely  to  result  in 
the  diffusion  of  the  distinctively  religious  sentiment.  Toleration 
may  be  quite  as  much  a  mode  of  the  consciousness  of  their  position, 
forced  in  upon  the  members  of  any  communion  or  sect  by  the  ex- 
ternal forces  of  literature  and  science,  and  by  the  attitude  of  the 
State,  as  a  frame  of  mind  generated  by  a  belief  so  profound  in  the 
truth  of  their  own  doctrines  that  they  can  regard  with  complacent 
indifference  the  religions  movements  of  others.  It  is  not  easy  to 
see  how  toleration  can  be  innate  in  any  Church  party,  or  how  any 
individual  can  be  tolerant  throughout,  who  is  possessed  by  a  sense 
of  the  paramount  importance  of  particular  dogmatic  tenets.  What 
are  to  be  the  future  relations  of  the  different  sects  in  England,  Prot- 
estant or  Catholic,  and  what  the  future  of  religion  itself,  is  a  tempt- 
ing, but  a  perilous,  theme  of  speculation.  At  present  we  can  only 
see  tendencies,  and  these  tendencies  are  not  in  the  direction  of  dog- 
matic unity.  On  all  sides  there  is  a  disposition  for  the  teachers  and 
preachers  of  different  churches  to  combine  together  for  the  purpose 
of  advancing  the  social  and  moral  good  of  the  community  at  large; 
to  recognize  that  element  of  regard  for  the  progress  and  ameliora- 
tion of  humanity  which  belongs  to  all  creeds  alike,  and  which  may, 
perhaps,  be  spoken  of  as  the  human  aspect  of  religion.  Thus  we 
find  clergvmen  of  the  Church  of  England,  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
of  the  various  Dissenting  bodies,  taking  then*  place  on  public  plat- 
forms by  the  side  not  only  of  devout  or  philanthropic  peers,  but 
also  of  well-meaning  men  of  the  world,  who  make  no  special  profes- 
sion of  any  spiritual  faith,  with  the  common  object  of  stamping  out 
the  national  curse  of  intemperance.  The  London  City  Mission  and 
Hospital  Sunday  are  further  instances  of  the  unanimity  which  is 
possible   among   the   champions   of  rival  creeds  when  the   object 


RELIGIOUS   ENGLAND.  481 

aimed  at  is  the  alleviation  of  human  misery,  want,  and  BufFerincr. 
The  institution  of  School  Boards  has  supplied  another  and  similar 
opportunity  for  obliterating  denominational  distinctions,  while  the 
movement  now  taking-  place  throughout  the  country,  and  which  has 
as  its  purpose  the  diffusion  of  art  education,  also  teaches  the  relig- 
ious instructors  of  the  masses,  irrespective  of  their  faith  or  Beet,  I" 
act  together  with  men  and  women  who  are,  perhaps,  attached  to  no 
sect  at  all. 

The  Positivist,  who  holds  that  the  only  creed  possible  for  hu- 
I  manity  is  that  in  which  humanity  is  the  first  article,  ma\  perhaps 
deduce  from  these  facts  signs  of  the  ultimate  triumph  of  his  faith. 
And  it  may  be  urged  that  there  is  a  sense  in  which  Positivism  as  a 
religious  gospel,  may  not  be  without  its  charm  to  a  busy  and  pre- 
occupied generation;  it  is  conceivable  that  there  are  minds  to  whom 
it  may  be  an  attraction  to  be  told  that  the  sole  motive  of  worthy 
actions  is  their  inherent  worthiness,  and  that  the  results  of  such 
actions  will  make  themselves  felt  and  will  be  their  own  reward, 
transmitted  through  endless  ages  of  posterity.  Miss  Martineau  has 
told  us,  in  her  autobiography,  that  she  never  felt  more  completely 
happy  than  when  she  had  renounced  all  belief  in  a  future  life  and 
the  last  traces  of  a  lingering  attachment  to  any  theological  dogmas. 
To  do  good  and  to  cultivate  morality  because  it  is  a  law  of  enlight- 
ened self-interest,  and  because  it  will  be  of  advantage  1<>  others 
now  and  hereafter,  is  a  faith  whose  large  definiteness  of  outline  1 1 
have  a  strong  attraction  to  a  certain  order  of  characters.  Here 
there  is,  at  least,  none  of  the  doubt  and  perplexity  which  a\ 
shadow  a  religion  whose  sanctions  .are  found  in  an  appeal  to  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  and  the  distribution  of  rewards  and  pun- 
ishments in  another  world.  What  has  yet  to  be  proved  is  whether 
a  belief  circumscribed  by  these  narrow  limits,  and  divested  of  ;dl 
supernatural  elements,  can  have  any  practical  force  with  the  g] 
majority  of  mankind.  If  history  has  any  lesson  for  us,  it  would 
surely  seem  that  religion,  having  survived  the  calumnies  and  mis- 
representations of  sacerdotal  bigotry,  will  survive  also  the  new 
scientific  attacks.  The  great  question  to  be  asked  and  answered  is 
this  :  Can  you  bring  up  children  so  as  to  make  them  truthful, 
moral,  law-abiding,  good  subjects  of  a  state,  and  good  members  of 
a  family,  without  teaching  them  thai  there  is  a  God  who  jud 
mankind?  Here  one  is  irresistibly  reminded  of  the  remark  of  the 
great  French  Revolutionist,  that  if  "there  were  no  God,  it  would 
be  necessary  to  create  one."  Of  course  the  answer  made  t<>  thi 
observations,  and  which  is  made  with  much  eloquence  and  earnest- 


482  ENGLAND. 

ness  by  Mr.  John  Morley  and  others,  is  that  the  experiment  has  not 
yet  been  fairly  tried.  That  is  undoubtedly  true.  But  the  question 
which  these  gentlemen  have  never  yet  fairly  met  is,  whether  in  the 
history  of  humanity  there  is  any  thing  to  justify  the  belief  that  a 
religion  of  humanity,  which  ignores  all  religious  sanctions,  is  prac- 
ticable for  the  bulk  of  human  beings,  is  a  categorical  imperative 
without  the  association  of  supernatural  hopes  and  fears,  likely  to 
accomplish  for  mankind  what  even  the  Positivists  say  is  necessary. 
Is  it  merely  a  fanciful  superstition  to  detect  the  true  account  of  the 
growth  of  human  society  in  these  stanzas? — 

"And  quickened  by  the  Almighty's  breath, 
And  chastened  by  His  rod, 
And  taught  by  angel-visitings, 
At  length  he  sought  his  God; 

"And  learned  to  call  upon  His  name, 
And  in  His  faith  create 
A  household  and  a  fatherland, 
A  city  and  a  state." 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

MODERN    PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT. 

The  Psychological  School  the  Main  School  of  Philosophy  in  England— Ita 
Relations  to  the  "Scotch  Common  Sense  School,"  to  "French  Eclecticism," 
and  to  the  System  of  M.  Comte  and  Positivism — Positivism  in  England — 
The  Course  of  Development  in  the  English  School — John  Stuart  Mill,  the 
Logician — Utilitarianism — The  Modem  Scientific  Ethics — Herbert  Spem  r 
— The  Doctrine  of  Evolution — Alexander  Bain,  the  Psychologist — George 
Henry  Lewes,  the  Physiologist — Intolerance  of  Metaphysics  and  Theol- 
ogy— The  Influence  of  Science  and  the  Popular  Consciousness— Darwin, 
Huxley,  Tyndall — The  Influence  of  German  Thought — The  Hegelians — 
Reason  and  Faith,  their  Possible  Reconciliation. 

"  nr^HE  scepter  of  Psychology  has  decidedly  returned  to  England." 
1      Such  are  the  words  in  which  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill  sums  up  the 
i  course  of  recent  speculation  in  this  country.     Some  critics  might  be 
'  disposed  to  detect  some  arrogance  on  the  part  of  the  English  phi- 
losopher towards  the  psychological  studies  of  German}-,  of  Kant  in 
the  last  century,  of  Herbart,  Wundt,  Fechner,  and  Lotze  in  more 

I  recent  times.  But  the  sentence  quoted  above  brings  into  promi- 
nence the  main  fact,  which  is  incontestable:  that  the  best  spirit  of 
English  thought  in  this  century  lias,  under  the  leadership  of  Dames 
lihe  Herbert  Spencer,  Bain,  and  Mill  himself,  centered  round  the 
problems  of  mental  Philosophy.  Some  activity  has  indeed  been 
displayed  in  the  deeper  and  more  far-reaching  inquiries,  which  go 
by  the  name  of  metaphysics;  but  this  has  been  chiefly  in  the  <liin- 
cult,  if  not  impossible,  attempt  to  transplant  German  thought  to 
English  soil;  and  the  number  of  the  professed  adherents  of  meta- 
physics maybe  counted  on  the  fingers  of  the  hand  in  comparison 
with  the  large  and  devoted  band  of  philosophers  who  rely  on  ex- 
perience. If  there  is  one  more  decisive  note  than  another  of  mod- 
ern English  philosophy,  it  is  a  resolute  adherence  to  the  teaching 

f    of  experience  in  mind,  matter,  and  morals. 

Such  a  tendency  could  not  root  itself  in  England  without  con- 
testing the  ground  against  alien  influences;  at  the  begins  the 
century  there  were  at  least  two  dominant  modes  of  thought  against 


484  ENGLAND. 

which  it  had  to  struggle.  If  we  put  aside  for  the  moment  the  in- 
fluence of  German  speculation — to  which  we  will  return  later — we 
shall  find  two  tendencies,  one  emanating  from  Scotland,  and  one 
due  to  a  form  of  Continental  thought,  against  both  of  which,  in  dif- 
ferent ways,  it  had  to  make  good  its  ground.  That  which  is  known 
as  the  Scotch  school,  under  the  names  of  Reid,  Dugald  Stewart,  and 
Brown,  was  a  philosophy  which  its  adherents  called  that  of  Common 
Sense.  The  term  has  either  no  significance  in  philosophy,  or  else  it 
is  superfluous.  If  Common  Sense  means  a  tact  or  instinct,  as  op- 
posed to  experience,  it  obviously  can  have  no  right  to  exist  in  a 
system  of  thought  at  all.  If  it  means  a  rationalized  experience,  it 
is  only  a  tautological  expression  for  philosophy  itself.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  school  in  question  arose  as  a  well-nieant  but  merely 
popular  reaction  against  the  skeptical  tendencies  of  Hume.  If  phi- 
losophy meant  such  a  complete  suicide  of  thought  as  Hume's  conclu- 
sions seemed  to  warrant,  the  best  way  appeared  to  be  to  abjure 
philosophical  analysis  and  fall  back  on  broad,  uncritical,  popular 
modes  of  deciding  problems.  If  our  knowledge  of  the  world  out- 
side ;  and  the  soul  inside  us,  was  nothing  else  than  a  plausible  delu- 
sion, as  it  was  for  Hume,  then,  inasmuch  as  ordinary  practical  men 
of  the  world  found  that  they  could  depend  on  the  world  and  them- 
selves with  tolerable  certainty  as  real  existences  it  seemed  that  the 
fault  must  he  with  the  philosopher  and  not  with  the  objects  of  his 
study,  and  that  the  best  course  must  be  to  brush  away  the  cobwebs 
by  a  vigorous  appeal  to  common  sense.  Thus,  too,  a  hand  might  be 
stretched  to  the  outraged  religious  world,  scandahzed  by  the  no- 
torious skepticism  of  Hume,  and  the  Scotch  successors  of  a  Scotch 
philosopher  might  take  vengeance  on  their  ingenious  but  mistaken 
parent. 

This  was  the  historical  genesis  of  Reid  and  Stewart,  and  so  far 
I  as  Common  Sense  meant  organized  exj^erience,  it  suited  the  sober 
practical  temper  of  Englishmen  too  well  not  to  leave  deep  traces 
on  modern  English  thought.  But  a  philosophy  of  Common  Sense 
might  include  other  elements.  It  was  almost  sure  to  be  declama- 
tory and  rhetorical;  and  sooner  or  later  it  would  ally  itself  with 
that  system  of  spiritualistic  philosophy  which  merges  logic  into 
dreams.  How  little  the  English  psychological  school  admired  the 
first  characteristic  may  be  seen  in  the  truculent  fashion  in  which 
Ja&es  Mill  in  his  "Fragment  on  Mackintosh"  handled  that  unfor- 
tunate rhetorician.  How  little  the  second  characteristic  could  be 
admitted  is  best  seen  in  the  relations  of  the  English  school  to  the 
French  spiritualists.     The  doctrines  of  "  Common  Sense  "  were  soon 


MODERX  PHIL  O SOri IIC.  I L    Tlh )  I  \  HIT. 

after  then'  first  promulgation  introduced  into  France.  Royer-Col- 
,  lard,  a  disciple  of  Reid,  and  liis  followers  Maine  de  Biran  and  Vic- 
;  tor  Cousin,  inaugurated  a  philosophy,  which  mixed   up  (in  rach 

proportions  as  the  antagonistic  elements  admitted)  Scotch  Common 
Sense,  Cartesian  self-analysis,  and  a  vague  and  nebulous  spirit 
which  was  essentially  their  own.  Scraps  of  though!  were  intro- 
duced from  all  quarters  so  long  as  they  would  help  them  in  their 
crusade  against  their  two  enemies,  Diderot  and  the  Encyclopedi 
and  Robespierre  and  Revolution.  The  result  was  a  marvellous  ec- 
lecticism, genial,  rhetorical,  religious,  but  by  no  means  philosophic, 
a  system  which  is  seen  in  its  best  characteristics  in  the  amiable  and 

.accomplished  M.  Joufrroy,  some  of  whose  writings  have  become 
domesticated  in  England.  But  they  could  not  win  any  sympathy 
from  the  English  school.  The  sort  of  judgment  passed  <>n  them 
may  be  perused  in  that  characteristically  English  "  History  of  Phi- 

'  losophy  "  by  Mr.  George  Henry  Lewes. 

"We  noticed  another  influence  which  the  rising  school  of  English 
psychologists  had  in  a  measure  to   discard.     By  their  very  n 
they  held  on  to  psycholog3r  as  their  sheet-anchor.     Bnt  psycho! 
itself  was  threatened  from  a  new  quarter  by  a   French   thin] 
diametrically  opposed  to  Victor  Cousin  and  his  fellows     ML.   Au- 

I  guste  Comte.  Comte  is  the  author  of  that  system  of  strictly  prac- 
tical philosophy  and  vaguely  theoretical  religion  which  is  termed 
Positivism,  and  Positivism,  at  all  events  in  the  mouth  of  its  earliesi 
expounder,  abjures  Psychology.  Psychology,  says  Comte.  is  an 
impossible  science,  because  it  attempts  to  study  the  faculties  by  the 
lmht  of  those  faculties  themselves.  "In  order  to  observe  yon  must 
effect  a  pause;  if  you  effect  the  pause  there  is  nothing  left  to 
observe."     In  other  words,  mind  cannot  study  itself,  be<  that 

study  is  only  possible  by  mind's  activity,  and  the  activity  neutralizes 
the  results  of  the  study.  The  intellect  cannot  observe  the  workings 
of  intellect,  because  here  observed  and  observer  are  the  same.  Nor, 
again,  can  even  the  intellect  observe  the  passions,  becan  -;on 

disturbs  the  observing  faculties.     And  so.   instead   of  pyscholo 
Comte  introduces  what  he  calls  "  Physiological   Phrenology,"! 
the  study  of  the  mind  from  without,  the  study  of  the  cerebreu  I 

the  cerebellum,  and  nerve-centers,  and  wh  r,  and  the 

rest  of  the  nomenclature  of  a  genuine  physii 

That  this  Positivist  attack  on  psychology  had  a  deep  influence 

i   on  subsequent  English  thought   is  dear  to  all  students  of    Bain, 
Lewes,  Carpenter,  and  Maudsley;  but  at  the  outset  it  is  equally  d 
that  some  determined  stand  had  to  be  made  by  those  who  W< 


486  ENGLAND. 

professedly  advocates  of  psychological  analysis.  John  Stuart  Mill 
has  a  severe  criticism  of  this  phase  of  Positivism  in  his  book 
"  Auguste  Comte  and  Positivism,"  as  well  as  in  his  "Logic."  Her- 
bert Spencer  has  issued  a  pamphlet,  entitled  "  Reasons  for  Dissent- 
ing from  the  Philosophy  of  M.  Comte,"  in  which  he  asserts  that  the 
analysis  of  oiu*  ideas  is  an  integral  portion  of  philosophy.  The 
general  line  which  such  criticisms  of  Comte  took  is,  of  course,  the 
obvious  fact  that  even  granting  that  we  do  not  know  much  of  "  states 
of  consciousness,"  we  know  incomparably  more  of  them  than  we  do 
of  their  physical  counterparts,  and  that  in  the  last  resort  we  know  no 
fact  at  all,  except  in  relation  to  oirr  own  states  of  consciousness. 

But  Positivism  includes  many  more  essential  features  than  this 
attack  on  psychology,  which  has  in  fact  been  greatly  modified  and 
almost  expunged  by  modern  Positivists.  Positivism  is  at  once  a 
system  of  thought  and  a  system  of  life.  As  a  system  of  thought,  it 
proceeds  on  the  fundamental  principle  that  all  researches  beyond 
phenomena  shoidd  be  suppressed.  First  causes  and  final  causes 
must  be  discarded;  with  the  beginning  and  end  of  things  we  have 
nothing  to  do,  our  only  concern  being  with  what  lies  between  these 
two  extremes.  Thus  all  forms  of  theology,  all  forms  of  metaphysics, 
are  finally  banished.  As  a  system  of  life,  it  includes  a  religious 
cult — the  worship  of  Humanity — and  a  more  or  less  definite  system 
of  Socialism.  In  France  M.  Littre  is  the  great  modern  expounder 
of  Positivism,  but  of  Positivism  as  a  philosophy,  not  as  a  religion; 
in  England,  also,  we  have  a  small  but  devoted  band  of  religious 
Positivists,  of  which  Dr.  Congreve,  Mr.  Brydges,  and  Mr.  Frederick 
Harrison  are  distinguished  members.  The  religious  Positivists  name 
their  children  after  mediaeval  saints,  by  way  of  keeping  up  the  cath- 
olic feeling  of  Humanity.  They  have  their  own  names  for  the 
months  of  the  year,  and  they  have  their  special  services  in  a  Positiv- 
ist  chapel  in  London,  in  which  many  curious  sightseers  serve  to 
swell  the  ranks  of  the  worshippers  of  Humanity. 

The  best  and  the  most  permanent  element  of  Positivism  was  the 
enunciation  of  a  great  historic  law  of  progress  and  evolution  of 
thought,  which  in  Comte's  technical  phraseology  was  called  "La 
loi  des  trois  etats,"  but  in  its  general  tendency  has  become  merged 
in  the  modern  scientific  doctrine  of  development.  It  is  this  which 
has,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  influenced  many  English  philos- 
ophers, who  disavow  all  leanings  to  Positivism.  It  is  this,  possibly, 
which,  combined  with  the  attack  on  metaphysics,  has  made  Mr. 
Lewes  so  strong  an  advocate  of  the  Positive  system.  "I  adhered," 
he  says,  "  to  the  Positive  philosophy  in  1845,  and  I  adhere  to  it  still 


MODERX  PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT.  1-7 

(in  1870)."  And  he  would  fain  have  us  all  read  the  "  Philosophic 
Positive."  "Study  the  '  Philosophic  Positive'  I'm-  yourself  (he  t 
apostrophizes  his  reader),  study  it  patiently,  give  it  the  time  and 
thought  you  would  not  grudge  to  a  new  science  or  a  new  Language, 
and  then,  whether  you  accept  or  reject  the  system,  von  will  find  your 
mental  horizon  irrevocably  enlarged."  "But  six  stout  volumes!" 
exclaims  the  hesitating  aspirant.  "Well,  yes,  six  volumes  requir- 
ing to  he  meditated  as  well  as  read.  I  admit  that  they  l  give  pan 
in  this  husy,  hustling  life  of  ours;  hut  if  you  relied  how  willingly 
six  separate  volumes  of  philosophy  would  he  read  in  the  course  of 
the  year,  the  undertaking  seems  less  formidable."  "No  one,"  lie 
concludes,  "who  considers  the  immense  importance  of  a  doctrine 
which  will  give  unity  to  his  life  would  hesitate  to  pay  a  higher  pr 
than  that  of  a  year's  study."  Meanwhile,  to  a  less  aspiring  and  more 
hesitating  student,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  in  Mss  Martineau's 
excellent  "Abridgment  of  Comte  "  he  can  read  in  the  compass  of 
ttwo  small  volumes  the  more  salient  doctrines  of  Positivism.  The 
importance  of  the  socialistic  analysis  of  that  philosophy  may  be 
gathered  from  the  fact,  that  in  it  will  be  found  the  key  to  Mill's 

,  Sociology  as  sketched  in  the  sixth  book  of  his  "  Logic,"  as  well  as 
the  source  and  fountain-head  of  much  recent  sociological  specul  - 
tion.  But  in  mentioning  Mr.  Lewes,  we  are  somewhat  anticipating 
the  course  of  development  in  the  prominent  English  school,  His 
place  comes,  chronologically,  with  Mr.  Alexander  Bain,  Mr.  Darwin, 

)  and  others;  and  to  the  rise  and  development  of  that  system  of  psy- 
chological analysis  we  must  now  proceed. 

How  far  not  only  moral  and  constitutional  peculiarities,  but 
modes  and  forms  of  thought  can  be  transmitted  from  father  to 
son,  is  one  of  the  much-debated  questions  of  heredity.  But  that 
the  two  Mills — father  and  son — exhibit  a  striking  instance  of  the  ex- 
tent of  such  hereditary  transmission  is  indisputable.     The  mind  of 

I  John  Stuart  Mill  was  run  in  the  mold  of  James  Mill,  and  the  crea- 
tions of  that  mind  were  but  more  or  less  varied  repetitions  of  the 
thoughts  of  the  bold  and  original  historian  of  British  India.  The 
proofs  are  to  be  found  not  only  in  the  general  position  of  philosophic 
radicalism  which  is  common  to  both,  but  in  the  edition  which  the 
son  published  of  his  father's  "Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind,"  and  in 
the  explicit  admissions  which  are  contained  in  that  book — of  such 
pecuhar  sadness  to  many  minds — the  "Autobiography  of  J.  8.  Mill" 
This  book  has  thrown  much  light  on  the  character  of  his  philosophy. 
It  has  explained  how  it  was  that  his  psychology  was  so  entirely  de- 
rived from  that  of  James  Mill,  and  was  the  result  of  so  little   U 


488  ENGLAND. 

pendent  study  on  his  own  part;  it  has  explained  why  Mill  never 
seems  to  have  systematically  studied  Continental  philosophy,  espe- 
cially German  speculation;  it  gives  the  reason  for  his  being  so 
wholly  occupied  with  the  middle  levels  of  thought,  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  inquiries  as  to  ultimate  ideas,  and  the  beginning '  and  end  of 
things.  For  we  now  know  that  his  education  left  hardly  any  room 
for  his  character  and  disposition  to  display  any  preferences,  and  that 
he  was  trained  strictly  on  the  hues  of  Benthamism  in  morals,  and  a 
modernized  version  of  Hobbes  in  mental  philosophy.  A  stern,  rigid, 
autocratic  father  like  James  Mill,  with  clearly  denned  views,  ren- 
dered all  the  more  positive  and  dogmatic  by  opposition  and  unpop- 
ularity, was  not  likely  to  allow  his  son's  intellect  to  expand  in  any 
other  directions  than  such  as  accorded  with  his  own  predilections. 

There  is  little  which  may  be  called  strictly  original  in  Mill's  phil- 
osophical scheme,  except,  possibly,  in  some  of  his  logical  specula- 
tions. To  him  must  be  attributed  a  theory  of  reasoning,  which  if 
not  wholly  new,  yet  exhibits  with  clearness  and  precision  the  func- 
tion of  the  major  premise  in  a  syllogism,  and  affirms  that  our  course 
of  reasoning  is  not,  as  is  usually  supposed,  from  the  general  law  to 
the  particular  case,  but,  without  exception,  from  particular  case  to 
adjacent  particular  cases, — the  Major  Premise  being  but  a  memo- 
randum, a  compendious  statement  of  the  result  of  our  experience 
hitherto.  If  to  this  we  add  that  he  is  the  author  of  certain  experi- 
mental methods  or  canons  of  induction  (which  have  been  severely 
criticised,  among  others  by  Dr.  Whewell) — that  he  advocates  the 
existence  of  "  Eeal  Kinds  "  in  nature  apart  from  classifications  due 
to  our  own  convenience — that  he  has  illustrated  with  great  ampli- 
tude the  plurality  of  causes  and  intermixture  of  effects  which  are 
found  in  nature's  working,  we  shall  have  exhausted  his  chief  contri- 
butions to  logical  science.  The  most  interesting  part  of  his  "  Logic  " 
is  the  sixth  book  in  the  second  volume,  in  which  Mill,  starting  from 
psychology,  and  what  he  terms  "Ethology"  (i.  e.,  the  conditions 
which  regulate  the  varieties  of  human  character),  proceeds  to  trace 
the  future  science  of  Sociology.  It  is  in  this  department  of  his  work 
that  he  approximates  most  nearly  to  the  work  of  Comte  and  Posi- 
tivism, just  as  it  was  especially  his  sociological  structure  which 
formed  the  most  valuable  and  lasting  influence  of  M.  Comte  on  his 
successors. 

In  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  his  philosophy,  as  exhibited,  for 
instance,  in  his  bitter  attack  on  Sir  William  Hamilton,  Mill  appears 
as  a  modern  version  of  Hume.  He  is  like  the  elder  philosopher  in 
his  empirical  and  sensationalist  stand-point,  believing  that  the  whole 


MODERN  PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT. 

body  of  human  knowledge  may  be  traced  back  to  sensations,  to  im- 
mediate contact  with  the  world  outside  us,  entirely  excluding  a  priori 

mental  action.  He  is  like  him,  again,  in  his  attack  on  so-called  nec- 
essary and  universal  truth,  resolving,  for  instance,  all  mathematical 
axioms  into  the  mere  result  of  a  number  of  experiences  of  points, 

straight  linos,  and  angles.  Above  all,  he  is  like  him  in  his  analysis 
of  external  matter,  which  he  concludes  to  be  nothing  but  the  "per- 
manent possibility  of  sensation,"  and,  with  some  limitations,  extends 
the  same  analysis  also  to  the  case  of  mind.  But  in  Ins  more  purely 
psychological  aspect,  Mill's  merit  lies  in  the  clear  stress  which  he 
has  laid  on  the  great  principle  enunciated  by  Hartley  of  "the  asso- 
ciation of  ideas."  Resemblance  and  contiguity  in  our  ideas  cause 
them  to  be  so  indissolubly  welded  together,  that  we  find  it  impos- 
sible to  call  up  one  without  thereby  summoning  the  others  in  its 
train.  It  is  thus  that  we  associate  together,  for  instance,  our  notion 
of  "straight  lines,"  and  "impossibility  to  include  a  space,"  and  end 
by  imagining— so  indissoluble  is  the  connection  thus  formed — that 
we  have  this  union  of  the  two  ideas  as  an  intuitive  perception  of  our 
minds,  independent  of  all  experience.  Tt  is  thus,  too,  that  associa- 
tion of  antecedent  and  consequent  in  the  natural  world  leads  to  the 
idea  that  there  is  in  what  we  term  "the  cause"  some  productive 
force,  some  creative  energy,  to  Avhich  the  effect  is  due;  and  again,  in 
less  theoretic  spheres,  it  is  thus  that  the  notions  of  money  and  hap- 
piness are  so  blended  together,  that  the  miser  will  make  the  amass- 
ing of  money  his  end,  finding  happiness  in  such  a  confusion  of  ends 

f  and  means.  In  fact,  "the  association  of  ideas"  is  a  sort  of  "mental 
chemistry,"  as  Mill  caUs  it,  which  explains  many  of  the  most  deeply- 
rooted  convictions  of  our  nature;  and  in  j:>sychological  science  wo 
are  told  that  it  plays  much  the  same  part  as  the  law  of  gravitation 
does  in  physics. 

More  important,  however,  in  its  influence  on  contemporary  and 
popular  thought  than  his  more  purely  philosophic  speculations  was 
that  doctrine  of  utilitarianism  in  morals,  of  which,  under  the  influ- 

/  ence  of  his  father  and  Bentham,  Mill  was  so  energetic  an  advocate. 
Indeed,  the  belief  that  the  good  is  only  the  generally  useful  is,  in 
one  shape  or  another,  common  to  the  whole  of  the  so-called  English 
psychological  school,  to  Herbert  Spencer  and  to  Bain  just  as  much 
as  to  Mill  himself.  In  still  later  times  Mr.  H.  Sidgwick,  of  ram- 
bridge,  has  published  a  work  on  "The  Methods  of  Ethics,"  in  which 
he  appears  as  the  defer  ler  of  the  utilitarian  theory:  and  it  ma\  he 
said  that,  for  the  greater  part  of  the  thinking  world,  as  well  as  for  a 
large  section  of  the  unthinking,  utilitarianism   forms  the  popular 


-k 


i 


490  ENGLAND. 

philosophy  of  the  day.  It  has  been  found  to  accord  marvellously 
well  with  the  practical  temper  of  the  English  mind,  and  receives 
more  than  an  incidental  illustration  in  the  favorite  English  study  of 
political  economy. 

There  are  many  points  of  view  from  which  utilitarianism  appears 
to  give  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  phenomena.  When  we  ap- 
proach human  action  from  the  political  side,  the  utilitarian  view  is 
perhaps  the  only  practicable  one.  The  happiness  of  the  people  is 
the  only  possible  aim  for  the  political  philosopher;  indeed,  it  has 
been  often  urged,  sometimes  as  praise,  sometimes  as  blame,  that 
the  principle  of  "  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number  " 
has  more  a  political  than  a  moral  character.  Helvetius  says  "La 
science  de  la  morale  n'est  autre  chose  que  la  science  de  la  legisla- 
tion." And  for  this,  there  is  this  sufficient  reason  that  utilitarian- 
ism studies  only  the  consequences  of  action  (i.  e.,  action  viewed  from 
the  outside,  as  it  affects  other  people),  which  is  a  truly  political  and 
social  view.  The  question,  however,  remains,  whether  if  personal 
ethics  is  to  mean  anything,  it  shoidd  not  mean  "action  viewed  from 
within,"  in  connection,  that  is,  with  the  principle  and  motive  which 
animates  it.  Or  again,  in  cases  of  casuistry,  or  instances  where 
apparent  duties  clash,  it  may  be  asked  what  better  test  can  be  found 
than  experience  of  the  consequences  of  actions?  When  a  patriot 
has  to  decide  between  his  duty  to  the  Government  under  which  he 
lives  and  his  duty  to  his  own  views  and  aspirations  for  his  country, 
is  not  "utility,"  or  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number, 
the  best  solvent  of  his  doubts'?  On  the  other  hand,  though  an 
appeal  to  utility  can  best  settle  collisions  of  duties,  it  is  clear  enough 
that  there  are  virtues,  the  sacred  and  authorit^ive  character  of 
which  is  taken  awav  by  the  explanation  afforded  by  utilitarianism. 
Justice  is  very  clumsily  explained  (notwithstanding  Mill's  discussion 
in  his  "Utilitarianism");  Chastity,  Veracity,  Honesty,  are  more  pow- 
erful before  the  analysis  into  utility  is  applied  to  them  than  after  it. 
A  man  will  not  consent  to  be  killed  rather  than  tell  a  lie,  because 
on  the  whole,  the  practice  of  telling  truth  is  useful  to  humanity,  nor 
yet  will  a  Light  Brigade  charge  Russian  guns  because  military  dis- 
cipline is  good  for  the  world. 

The  fact  is  that,  despite  the  extensive  popidarity  of  utilitarianism 
among  English  modern  philosophers,  it  runs  counter  to  that  popular 
consciousness,  to  which  it  is  sometimes  given  to  break  through  the 
cobwebs  of  metaphysical  ingenuity.  Nothing  is  more  clear  to  un- 
sophisticated minds  than  the  distinction  between  what  is  expedient 
and  what  is  right,  however  often  they  may  happen  to  coincide.     We 


MODERN   PHILOSOnilCAr.     TIIO  I'M 

do  not  venerate  the  man  who,  when  called  to  some  ad  of  heroism, 
calculates  whether  on  the  whole  his  ad  will  be  useful  to  him 
to  the  world,  or  not     It  is  more  natural  to  call  Belf  aa<  rifice  nol  le, 
than  !<>  call  it  useful;  and  no  martyr     nol  even  a  scientific  martyr 
would  ever  go  to  the  stake,  it'  he  stopped  to  reckon  up  the  kx  nefits 
t  '  as  againsl  the  personal  pain  of  a  death  by  burnu 

Whether  utilitarianism,  however,  is  satisfactory  or  not,  it  is  al 
least  an  attempt  to  explain  moral  phenomena  as  forming  an  inde- 
pendent science  of  their  own.  The  analysis  .given  oi  i  Bnc<  b] 
Mill,  although  it  denies  its  primary  and  original  charai  I  de- 
rives  it  from  certain  sentiments  and  feelings,  which  are  apparently 
disinterested.  But  the  latest  tendency  of  philosophy  in  England  is 
to  make  morality  a  sort -of  appanage  of  physical  constitution,  and  t<> 
define  conscience  as  a  "function  of  organization"  The  character- 
istic of  Bain  and  Lewes  as  psychologists  is  (as  we  shall  see)  to  I 
thought  as  a  function  of  mailer,  and  from  this  it  is  bul  a  Bt<  p  to  the 
position  that  all  moral  feeling  and  sentiment  may  be  equallj 
plained  by  physical  considerations.  The  step  has  been  boldly  I 
by  some  physiologists  and  medical  theorists,  amon  I  hers  by 
Dr.  Maudsley.  In  a  lecture  on  Conscience  published  in  his  work 
"Body  and  Mind,"  Dr.  Maudsley  says,  "There  is  the  strongest  desire 
evinced,  and  the  most  strenuous  efforts  are  made  in  many  quarters 
to  exempt  from  physical  researches  the  highest  functions  of  mind, 
and  particularly  the  so-called  moral  sense  and  the  will.  The  moral 
sense  is,  indeed,  the  stronghold  of  those  who  have  made  sb  itegical 
movements  of  retreat  from  other  defensive  positions  which  they  have 
taken  up.  Are  we  then,  as  physiologists,  t<>  allow  an  exemption 
from  physical  research  to  any  function  of  mind,  however  exalted? 
or  shall  we  maintain  through  good  and  through  evil  report  that  all 
its  functions  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  are  equally  functions 
of  organization?  A  vital  question  for  us  as  medical  physi 
which  we  must  sooner  or  later  face  boldly  and  answer  distinctly." 
To  which  we  may  add,  that  it  is  also  a  vital  question  for  moral  phi- 
losophers which  they  must  face  boldly  and  answer  distinctly,  if  i 
is  to  be  any  longer  an  independent                of  ethics. 

Dr.  Maudsley  proceeds  to  ask  if  there  is  "the  same  i  .1  con- 

nection between  moral  sense  and  brain  which  there  is  between 

thought  and  brain,  or  between  any  of  our  special  and  its 

cial  ganglionic  center  in  the  brain?"     To  which  he  returns  an  em- 
phatic affirmative,  with  the  assertion  thai  thej  do  not  admit  od 
other  scientific  interpretation.     "One  thing  is  certain,  thai  moral 
philosophy  cannot  penetrate  the  hidden  springs  of  ■ 


I 


( 


492  ENGLAND. 

pulse;  they  lie  deeper  than  it  can  reach,  for  they  lie  in  the  physical 
constitution  of  the  individual,  and,  going  still  farther  back,  perhaps 
in  his  organic  antecedents.  Because  the  fathers  have  eaten  sour 
grapes,  therefore  it  often  is  that  the  children's  teeth  are  set  on 
edge.  Assuredly  of  some  criminals,  as  of  some  insane  persons,  it 
may  be  truly  said  that  they  are  born  not  made ;  they  go  criminal, 
as  the  insane  go  mad,  because  they  cannot  help  it;  a  stronger 
power  than  they  can  counteract  has  given  the  bias  of  their  being." 
A  striking  illustration  is  adduced  to  bring  this  home  to  the  reader. 
"  While  the  Reign  of  Terror  was  going  on  during  the  first  French 
Revolution,  an  innkeeper  profited  by  the  critical  situation  in  which 
many  nobles  of  his  commune  found  themselves,  to  decoy  them  into 
his  house,  where  he  was  believed  to  have  robbed  and  murdered 
thorn.  His  daughter,  having  quarrelled  with  him,  denounced  him 
to  the  authorities,  who  put  him  on  his  trial,  but  he  escaped  convic- 
tion from  lack  of  proof.  She  committed  suicide  subsequently.  One 
of  her  brothers  had  nearly  murdered  her  on  one  occasion  with  a 
knife,  and  another  brother  hanged  himself.  Her  sister  was  epilep- 
tic, imbecile,  and  paroxysmally  violent.  Her  daughter,  in  whom 
the  degenerate  line  approached  extinction,  became  completely  de- 
ranged, and  was  sent  to  an  asvlum.  Here  then  is  the  sort  of 
pedigree  which  we  really  want  if  we  are  to  judge  of  the  worth 
of  a  family — the  hereditary  line  of  its  vices,  virtues,  and  diseases." 

First  Generation.        Acute  intelligence,  with      )      Absence  or  destruction  of 
murder  and  robbery.        j moral  sense. 

Second  Generation.       Suicide.      Homicidal  violence      Epilepsy,  Imbecility. 

and  suicide.  and  mania. 

Third  Generation.         Mania. 

Such  is  the  latest  result  of  the  application  of  the  great  modern 
doctrine  of  "  Evolution  "  to  the  phenomena  of  moral  life. 

The  first  systematic  adoption  of  evolution,  as  the  keystone  of 
philosophy,  was  made  by  Herbert  Spencer.  Of  the  three  contem- 
poraries, Herbert  Spencer,  Alexander  Bain,  and  George  Henry 
Lewes,  who  have  propagated  so  widely  the  scientific  and  philo- 
sophic impulse  communicated  by  Mill,  it  is  undoubtedly  the  first 
who  completely  merits  the  name  of  a  systematic  thinker.  In  March, 
1860,  a  catholic  scheme  was  propounded,  almost  Titanic  in  its  pro- 
portions, of  works  to  be  issued  in  periodical  parts  by  Herbert  Spen- 
cer. The  series  was  to  begin  with  "  Fust  Principles,"  with  its  two 
divisions  of  "  the  Unknowable  "  and  "  the  Knowable,"  to  proceed  to 
"  The  Principles  of  Biology  "  in  two  volumes,  "  The  Principles  of 


MODERN  PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT.  493 

Psychology"  also  in  two  volumes,  "The  Principles  of  Sociology"  in 
three  volumes,  and  to  end  with  the  two  volumes  of  "The"   PrincipL 
of  Morality,"  ami  of  this  enormous  programme  the  greater  portion 

is  completed.      Little  wonder  is  it  that   Mill  and    Lewes  sh.mld   be 
equally   emphatic   in   their   admiration.     In   comparing    him    wit 
Comte,  3Iill  says.  --Mr.  Spencer  is  one  of  the  small  number  of  per- 
sons who  by  the  solidity  and  encyclopedical  character  oi  their  km  \vl-  , 
edge  and  their  power  of  co-ordination  and  concatenation,  may  claim 
to  be  the  peers  of  M.  Comt<  ntitled  to  a  vo 

of  him."     "It  is  que  ble,"  says  the  author  of  the  "History  of 

Philosophy,"  "  whether  any  thinker  of  finer  c  I  in 

our  country,  although  the  future  alone  can  determine  the  position 
he  is  to  assume  iu  history.     .     .     .     He  al<  British  thinkers 

has  organized  a  system  of  philosophy."     The  reason  is  that  Serb 
Spencer's  philosophy  is  dominated  by  one  vasl  conception,  which 
serves  as  a  focus  in  which  are  gathered  and  concent]  all  the 

rays  of  thought  iu  its  different  departments.     It  is  saturated  wi 
one  thought  of  pre-eminent  importance — the  great  conception  of 
"Evolution,"  of  "Development."     As  Professor  Huxley  has  said, 
"The  only  complete  and  methodical  exposition  known  to  me  of  the 
theory  of  evolution  is  to  be  found  in  Herbert  Spencer's  m 

of  Philosophy,'  a  work  that  should  be  carefully  studied   by  tho 
who  desire  to  become  acquainted  with  the  tendencies  of  scientific 
thought." 

"What  is  this  law  of  evolution?     We  must  first  attempt  I 
some  scientific  expression  or  definition  of  it  before  proceeding  to 
observe  its  exemplifications  in  the  different  spheres  of  being  and 
thought.     It  has  one  fundamental  principle  from  which  i  Vi  •  .  i  . 
is  deduced — the  persistence   of  force.     Just   for   the   reason    thai 
energy  is  always  active  in  nature,  that  force  never   fails  or   di 
do  things  hi  nature  change,  adopt  new  forms,  new  developments, 
new  transformations.     If  the  law  is  to  be  expressed  in  a  formula,  it 
will  run  thus:  "Progress  consists  in  the  passage  from  a  homog<  ae- 
ous  to  a  heterogeneous  structure."     The  law  of  all  progress  is  one 
and  the  same,  the  evolution  of  the  simple  into  the  complex  by  suc- 
cessive differentiations.     If  we  ask  why  progress  should  run  alwi 
in  this  direction,  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  heterogeneous,  the 
reason  is  twofold.     In  the  first  place,  if  a  body  is  in  a  homogeneous 
condition,  it  is  unstable;  "homogeneity  is  a  condition  of  unstal 
equihbrium;"  or  in  more  simple  language,  a  Btate  of  uniformity  is 
one  which  cannot  be  maintained.    A  familiar  illustration  is  furnish.  I 
by  the  scales,  "If  they  1  .lately  made  and  not  clogg<  lirt 


494  ENGLAND. 

or  rust,  it  is  impossible  to  keep  a  pair  of  scales  perfectly  balanced; 
eventually  one  scale  will  descend  and  tlie  other  ascend,  they  will 
assume  a  heterogeneous  relation."  Or  again,  "Take  a  piece  of  red- 
hot  matter,  and  however  evenly  heated  it  may  at  first  be,  it  will 
quickly  cease  to  be  so,  the  exterior  cooling  faster  than  the  interior 
will  become  different  in  temperature  from  it,  and  the  lapse  into 
heterogeneity  of  temperature  so  obvious  in  this  extreme  case  takes 
place  more  or  less  in  aU  cases."*  The  second  reason  for  this  direc- 
tion of  progress  is  that  every  active  force  produces  more  than  one 
change,  every  cause  produces  more  than  one  effect.  The  multipli- 
city of  effects  resulting  from  a  single  cause  naturally  converts  homo- 
geneity into  heterogeneity.  If  a  body  is  shattered  by  violent  collision, 
"besides  the  change  of  the  homogeneous  mass  into  a  heterogene- 
ous group  of  scattered  fragments,  there  is  a  change  of  the  homo- 
geneous momentum  into  a  group  of  momenta,  heterogeneous  in  both 
amounts  and  directions."  "Of  the  sun's  rays,  issuing  from  him  on 
every  side,  some  few  strike  the  moon,  these  being  reflected  at  all 
angles  from  the  moon's  surface,  some  few  of  them  strike  the  earth. 
By  a  like  process  the  few  which  reach  the  earth  are  again  diffused 
through  surrounding  space;  and  on  each  occasion,  such  portions  of 
the  rays  as  are  absorbed  instead  of  reflected,  undergo  refractions 
that  equally  destroy  their  parallelism."  For  these  two  reasons — 
that  homogeneity  is  a  condition  of  unstable  equilibrium,  and  that 
every  active  force  produces  several  changes — the  law  of  evolution 
may  be  defined  as  a  process  during  which  "  an  indefinite  incoherent 
homogeneity  is  transformed  into  a  definite  coherent  heterogeneity." 

Herbert  Spencer  illustrates  this  law  with  a  wonderful  wealth  of 
illustration  in  all  kinds  of  different  spheres — in  the  sphere  of  the 
world's  growth,  the  growth  of  individual  organisms,  the  growth  of 
the  social  organism,  and  the  genesis  of  science;  of  these  we  may 
select  the  first  and  the  third  as  adequate  examples  of  Spencer's 
method. 

In  the  beginning  geologists  tell  us  that  our  globe  was  a  mass  of 
matter  in  a  state  of  fusion,  and  was  therefore  of  homogeneous  struct- 
ure and  of  tolerably  homogeneous  temperature.  Then  came  the 
successive  changes  into  heterogeneity;  into  mountains,  continents, 
seas,  igneous  rocks,  sedimentary  strata,  metallic  veins.  Or,  again, 
look  at  the  case  of  organisms  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  Fishes  are 
the  most  homogeneous  in  their  structure,  and  are  one  of  the  earliest 

*  Herbert  Spencer,  "First  Principles,"  p.  402.  The  interested  reader  should 
study  the  whole  of  the  chaps,  sii.-xviii.  of  Part  n.,  exhibited  in  more  popular 
foiia  in  "Essays,"  London,  1801. 


( 


MODERN  PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT.  196 

productions  on  the  globe;  reptiles  come  later  and  are  more  hetei 
geneous;  mammals  and  birds,  which  are  produced  later  still,  are  still 

more  heterogeneous;  man  is  the  most  heterogeneous  of  all.  Even  if 
we  limit  ourselves  to  the  case  of  man,  the  law  holds  good.  The 
multiplication  of  races,  and  the  splitting  up  of  races  among  them- 
selves, have  made  the  species  much  more  heterogeneous.  "The 
Papuan  has  very  small  legs,  resembling  in  this  the  quadrumanous 
kind,  while  in  the  case  of  the  European,  whose  legs  are  longer  and 
more  massive,  there  is  more  heterogeneity  between  the  upper  and 
lower  limbs."  Another  example  of  this  progress  in  heterogeneity  is 
furnished  by  the  subdivisions  even  of  the  Saxon  race,  which  lias 
within  a  few  generations  developed  into  the  Anglo-American  varied 
and  the  Anglo-Australian  variety.  Perhaps,  however,  a  clearer  ex- 
ample of  the  operation  of  the  law  can  be  found  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  social  organism.  The  society  of  savages  is  an  aggre- 
gate of  individuals,  who  all  hunt,  fish,  go  to  war,  and  work,  or  in 
other  words,  it  is  homogeneous;  every  individual  having  the  same 
functions.  Then  comes  a  differentiation  between  the  governing  and 
the  governed;  while  in  the  governing  power  are  still  united  religious 
and  executive  functions.  Other  differentiations  lead  to  our  present 
condition  of  heterogeneity,  Church  gradually  dividing  itself  from 
State,  and  the  actual  political  organization  consisting  of  numerous 
subdivisions  in  justice  and  finance,  in  executive  and  deliberative 
powers. 

In  Herbert  Spencer's  "  Principles  of  Psychology  "  the  same  law 
is  applied  to  our  mental  states,  and  we  are  proved  to  have  become 
in  mmd  what  we  are  by  successive  developments  from  early  organic 
states.  A  striking  result  of  the  introduction  of  this  conception 
of  evolution  into  psychology  is  shown  in  Herbert  Spencer's  attitude 
towards  the  so-called  "Forms"  of  mind.  There  are  certain  forms, 
of  which  "  Time  "  and  "  Space  "  are  most  frequently  quoted,  which 
have  been  the  sources  of  much  mental  confusion  to  philosophers, 
for  they  seem  to  be  so  entirely  innate,  conceptions  of  such  immedi- 
ate validity,  as  to  preclude  all  possibility  of  resolution;  and  hence 
by  Kant  they  have  been  boldly  termed  "Forms  of  Sense,"  or,  in 
other  words,  a  priori  conditions  of  sensation  and  perception.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  can  be  resolved,  and  are  resolved  by  philoso- 
phers like  Hume  and  Mill,  into  ideas,  "put  together  <>uf  of  success- 
ive single  sensations."  Now  this  old  difficulty  as  to  whether  "  Time  " 
and  "Space"  are  a  i>ri<<,-i  or  a  posteriori,  is  solved  according  to  Her- 
bert Spencer  by  the  hypothesis  that  they  are  in  reality  a  priori  to 
the  individual,  but  a  xioderiori  to  the  race;  in  other  words,  men  be- 


496  ENGLAND. 

gin  now  in  their  perceptions  with  ideas  of  space  and  time  ready 
formed;  but  these  have  in  reality  been  bequeathed  to  them — be- 
queathed by  a  long  course  of  experiences  in  their  ancestors.  And 
so  Herbert  Spencer  claims  to  have  reconciled  Locke  and  Kant:  "in 
psychology,  the  arrested  growth  recommences  now  that  the  disci- 
ples of  Kant  and  'those  of  Locke  have  both  then  views  recognized 
in  the  theory  that  organized  experiences  produce  forms  of  thought." 
Nothing,  in  fact,  is  sacred  from  the  penetrative  analysis  of  this  phi- 
losopher; no  thought,  no  feeling,  no  sentiment,  not  even  that  senti- 
ment which,  under  the  name  of  Love,  has  formed  the  staple  com- 
modity of  poets  and  novelists.  This  is  how  "victorious  analysis" 
disposes  of  love.  "  The  passion  which  unites  the  sexes  is  habitually 
spoken  of  as  though  it  were  a  simple  feeling;  whereas  it  is  the  most 
compound,  and  therefore  the  most  powerful  of  all  the  feelings.  Added 
to  the  purely  physical  elements  of  it,  are  first  to  be  noticed  those  high- 
ly complex  impressions  produced  by  personal  beauty;  around  which 
are  aggregated  a  variety  of  pleasurable  ideas,  not  in  themselves  ama- 
tory, but  which  have  an  organized  relation  to  the  amatory  feeling. 
With  this  there  is  united  the  complex  sentiment  which  we  term  affec- 
tion— a  sentiment  which,  as  it  can  exist  between  those  of  the  same 
sex,  must  be  regarded  as  an  independent  sentiment,  but  one  which 
is  here  greatly  exalted.  Then  there  is  the  sentiment  of  admiration, 
respect,  or  reverence;  in  itself  one  of  considerable  power,  and 
which  in  this  relation  becomes  in  a  high  degree  active.  There 
comes  next  the  feeling  called  love  of  approbation.  To  be  preferred 
above  all  the  world,  and  that  by  one  admired  be}rond  all  others,  is 
to  have  the  love  of  approbation  gratified  in  a  degree  passing  every 
previous  experience;  especially  as  there  is  added  that  indirect  grat- 
ification of  it,  which  results  from  the  preference  being  witnessed  by 
unconcerned  persons.  Further,  the  allied  emotion  of  self-esteem 
comes  into  play.  To  have  succeeded  in  gaining  such  attachment 
from,  and  sway  over,  another,  is  a  proof  of  power  which  cannot  fail 
agreeably  to  excite  the  amour  prqpre.  Yet  again  the  proprietary 
feeling  has  its  share  in  the  general  activity;  there  is  the  pleasure  of 
possession — the  two  belong  to  each  other.  Once  more,  the  relation 
allows  of  an  extended  liberty  of  action.  Finally,  there  is  the  exal- 
tation of  the  sympathies.  Thus,  around  the  physical  feeling  form- 
ing the  nucleus  of  the  whole  are  gathered  the  feelings  produced  by 
personal  beauty,  that  constituting  simple  attachment,  those  of  rever- 
ence, of  love  of  approbation,  of  self-esteem,  of  property,  of  love  of 
freedom,  of  sympathy.  These,  all  greatly  exalted,  and  severally 
tending  to  reflect  their  excitements  on  one  another,  unite  to  form 


MODERN  PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT.  1  ■  i  T 

the  mental  state  we  call  'love,'  and  as  each  of  them  is  i  >mpre- 

bensive  of  multitudinous  states  of  consciou  wo  may  sa 

this  passion  fuses  into  one  immense  aggregate  most  of  the  el(  m<  nt- 
ary  excitations  of  which  we  are  capable;  and  that  hence  results  its 
irresistible  power." 

And  now  what  has  Herbert  Spencer  to  say  of  those  deeper  prob- 
lems which  lie  at  the  root  of  philosophy  and  science,  of  the  relations 
of  all  the  forces  and  powers  of  nature  to  the  First  Cause — of  the  re- 

'  lations  of  science  and  religion  ?  One  of  the  most  interest  i  Qg  portions 
of  "First  Principles"  treats  expressly  of  these  problems.  Herberl 
Spencer  asserts  that  he  has  found  a  reconciliation  between  religion 
and  science.  The  reconciliation  is,  possibly,  not  one  which  either  of 
the  two  contending  parties  would  accept;  and  more  Btrangely  still, 
it  is  a  solution. framed  on  the  lines  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton  and  Dr.  Man- 
sel — the  one  a  Scotch  metaphysician,  the  other  a  "  Bampton  lecturer  " 
on  divinity.  Both  religion  and  science  must  allow,  according  to 
Spencer,  that  ultimately  they  rest  on  "the  Unknowable."  The  the- 
ologians cannot  define  their  God,  cannot  possibly  explain  how  an 
infinite  and  an  absolute  can  yet  be  a  Person;  the  scientific  men 
cannot  define  the  ultimate  grounds  on  which  rest  their  "Forces," 
and  "Energies,"  and  "Laws."  In  every  direction,  if*we  pursue  the 
inquiry  long  enough,  we  come  to  an  inner  secret,  to  a  substratum 
of  "the  Unknowable."  "By  continually  seeking  to  know,  and  being 
continually  thrown  back  with  a  deepened  conviction  of  the  impossi- 
bility of  knowing,  we  may  keep  alive  the  consciousness  that  it  is  alike 
our  highest  wisdom  and  our  highest  duty  to  regard  that  through 
which  all  things  exist  as  the  Unknowable." 

As  "Amurath  an  Amurath  succeeds,"  so  follow  psychologists  and 
physiologists  in  the  steps  of  Herbert  Spencer.  Among  these,  two 
have  raised  themselves  into  the  front  rank — Alexander  Bain  and 

;  George  Henry  Lewes;  but  their  merits  are  of  a  very  different  order. 
By  far  the  acuter  mind  of  the  two,  both  in  speculative  insight  a::  1 
the  special  talents  of  the  psychologist,  was  possessed  by  Mr.  Lewes. 
"Without  him,  it  would  be  true  to  say  that  a  marked  step  of  p; 
would  be  wanting  in  philosophy.     But  such  praise  could  hardly  be 
accorded  to  Mr.  Bain.     His  strength  lies  rather  in  expression,  in 
illustration  of  details,  in  general  breadth  of  descriptive  power,  rather 
than  in  those  gifts  of  vivid  insight,  or  ample  generalization,  or  pr 
nant  suggestion,  which  form  the  character  of  an  original  philosopher. 
Perhaps  such  a  man  is  needed  after  a  great  systematic,  ByntL 
thinker  like  Herbert  Spencer,  to  pick  up,  as  it  were,  the  fragments 
that  remain,  to  bring  out  points  in  clearer  light  which  might  other- 
32 


498  ENGLAND. 

wise  be  neglected,  to  serve  up  the  intellectual  banquet  anew  in  fresh 
forms  for  the  jaded  appetite.  Necessary,  however,  though  such  a 
man  may  be  in  a  series  or  succession  of  philosophic  thinkers,  }ret 
from  a  popular  point  of  view — from  the  view  of  large  or  wide-spread 
influence  on  the  body  of  the  cultured  world— we  shall  hardly  be 
wrong  in  j)assing  over  without  much  comment  the  name  of  Mr.  Bain 
in  such  a  general  review  of  thought  as  we  propose  to  ourselves. 
One  reason,  amongst  many  others,  which  might  be  adduced  of  the 
comparative  unimportance  of  this  philosopher  is  to  be  found  in  this: 
that  there  is  in  his  work,  as  his  French  critic,  M.  Ribot,  observes, 
"  a  too  frequent  absence  of  the  idea  of  progress,  and  a  consequent 
neglect  of  the  dynamic  study  of  phenomena." 

The  best  that  can  be  said  for  him  will  be  found  in  the  estimate 
of  J.  S.  Mill,  in  an  essay  published  in  the  "  Dissertations  and  Discus- 
sions." "He  has  worthily  inscribed  his  name  beside  those  of  the 
successive  builders  of  an  edifice,  to  which  Hartley,  Brown,  and  James 
Mill  have  contributed  their  share  of  toil."  But  in  that  temple  of 
fame  we  presume  that  niches  are  found  not  only  for  the  master- 
builders,  the  great  spiritual  architects,  but  also  for  those  who  have 
humbler  tasks,  the  careful  and  conscientious  workmen  in  other  peo- 
ple's designs.  By  far  a  truer  estimate,  probably,  is  that  given  by 
Herbert  Spencer  in  one  of  his  "Essays."  "The  work  of  Mr.  Alex- 
ander Bain  is  not  in  itself  a  system  of  mental  philosophy,  properly 
so  called,  but  a  classified  collection  of  materials  for  that  system,  pre- 
sented with  that  method  and  insight  which  scientific  discipline  gen- 
erates, and  accompanied  with  occasional  passages  of  an  analytical 
character.  Were  we  to  say  that  the  researches  of  the  naturalist  who 
collects  and  dissects  and  describes  species,  bear  the  same  relation 
to  the  researches  of  the  comparative  anatomist,  tracing  out  the  laws 
of  organization,  which  Mr.  Bain's  labors  bear  to  the  labors  of  the 
abstract  psychologist,  we  should  be  going  somewhat  too  far,  for  Mr 
Bain's  work  is  not  wholly  descriptive.  Still,  however,  such  an  ana1- 
ogy  conveys  the  best  general  conception  of  what  he  has  done,  and 
serves  most  clearly  to  indicate  its  needfulness." 

The  chief  points  of  interest  in  Mr.  Bain's  philosophy  may  be 
briefly  summed.  In  the  first  place,  we  notice  the  same  stress  on 
the  physiological  antecedents  of  Psychology  which  is  to  be  found  in 
Herbert  Spencer.  In  the  first  of  his  two  larger  books,  "  The  Senses 
and  the  Intellect,"  Mr.  Bain  begins  with  a  description  of  the  brain, 
the  cerebral  nerves,  the  cerebellum,  and  the  spinal  cord.  The  nerv- 
ous system  is  for  him  the  "  fons  et  origo  "  of  psychological  study,  for 
the  nervous  system  is  the  very  condition  of  psychological  life.     In  a 


MODERX  PHILOSOPHICAL     THOUGHT.  400 

•word,  the  life  of  the  mind  is  bui  u  special  vari<  fry,  ■.<  peculiar  mani- 
festation, of  general  physical  life.  In  the  second  place,  we  have  in 
the  same  work  an. elaborate  study  of  the  association  of  ideas,  illus- 
trated with  that  fullness  of  descriptive  power  which  is  the  best  and 
the  chief  characteristic  of  Mr.  Bain.  Lastly,  in  the  companion  work, 
entitled  "The  Emotions  and  the  "Will.'"  we  have  mi  exhaustive  enu- 
meration (yet  hardly  a  classification)  of  the  feelings  and  emotions, 
studied  in  their  double  aspect,  as  parts  at  once  of  psychology  and 
physiology.  Somewhat  curiously,  English  philosophers  have,  as  a 
rule,  been  deficient  in  any  study  of  the  emotions.  They  have  not  in 
this  respect  assimilated  one  of  the  truest  elements  of  Comte's  pro- 
gramme (which  distinctly  included  "the  affective  phenomena"),  and 
the  result  has  been  a  certain  unreality  and  lack  of  practical  influence 
in  their  mental  theories.  Yet,  though  Mr.  Bain  does  his  best  in  this 
instance  to  fill  the  breach,  his  descriptive  power  too  often  runs  away 
with  him;  according  to  the  judgment  of  Herbert  Spencer,  in  Mr. 
Bain's  work  description  fills  too  large  a  share,  and  analysis  too 
small  a  one.  It  is  only  a  strict  analysis  which  can  precede  a  real 
classification. 

Very  striking,  suggestive,  and  original  are  the  contributions 
made  by  Mr.  George  Henry  Lewes  to  the  history  of  modern 
thought.  Metaphysics  Mr.  Lewes  will  have  none  of,  and  his  at- 
I  tack  on  them  in  his  later  books  is  only  an  echo  of  the  attack  made 
in  the  Prolegomena  to  the  earliest  edition  of  his  "History  of  Phi- 
losophy.".  If  we  wish  to  see  Mr.  Lewes  at  his  best  we  should  pe- 
ruse that  characteristic  Introduction.  There  will  be  found  the 
salient  features  of  his  style — its  liveliness,  its  freedom  from  all 
pedantry,  its  critical  acumen,  its  popular  sallies,  its  excessive  dog- 
matism. The  metaphysician  and  the  man  of  science  are  like  two 
travelers  who  come  into  a  country  where  they  meet  for  the  first 
time  with  a  clock.  One  finds  in  the  new  phenomenon  an  exhibi- 
tion of  a  vital  principle:  "the  ticking  resembles  the  regular  sound-; 
of  breathing;  the  beating  of  the  pendulum  is  like  the  beating  of  I 
heart;  the  slow  movements  of  the  hands,  are  they  not  movements  of 
feelers  in  search  of  food?  the  striking  of  the  hours,  are  they  nol  eri<  a 
of  pain  or  expressions  of  anger?"  The  other  traveler  is  aware  ..I  the 
necessity  of  verifying  hypotheses,  and  proceeds  according  to  a  dif- 
ferent method.  He  tab  s  away  the  lace  of  die  clock,  but  finds  noth- 
ing changed,  but  no  sooner  has  he  stopped  the  pendulum  than  he 
finds  that  every  thing  has  stopped  with  it.  Prom  these  and  other 
experiments,  he  discovers  trulj  thai  the  clock  is  a  mechanism.  Such, 
thinks  Mr.  Lewes,  is  the  diffi  rence  between  the  two  cla  .  minds, 


500  ENGLAND. 

one  of  which  is  doomed  to  sterility,  the  other  ordained  to  an  ever-in- 
creasing- triumph.  Or  again,  "  the  metaphysician  is  a  merchant,  who 
speculates  boldly,  but  without  that  convertible,  capital  which  can 
enable  him  to  meet  his  engagements.  The  man  of  science  is  also  a 
venturesome  merchant,  but  one  fully  alive  to  the  necessity  of  solid 
capital,  which  can,  on  emergency,  be  produced  to  meet  his  bills;  he 
knows  the  risks  he  runs  whenever  that  amount  of  capital  is  exceeded; 
he  knows  that  bankruptcy  awaits  him,  if  capital  be  not  forthcoming." 
A  third  illustration  is  drawn  from  the  phenomena  of  spirit-rap- 
ping. With  such  variety  of  agreeable  matter  does  the  brilliant  his- 
torian of  philosophy  beguile  the  ennui  of  the  student,  and  attempt 
to  disguise  the  difficulties  which  surround  that  unique  phenomenon 
"  Consciousness." 

There  is,  perhaps,  only  one  thing  which  moves  Mr.  Lewes'  scorn 
as  much  as  metaphysics,  and  that  is  dogmatic  theology.  "  The 
expansion  of  knowledge  is  loosening  the  very  earth  clutched  by  the 
roots  of  creeds  and  churches,"  he  says  with  almost  cruel  energy. 
The  history  of  philosophy  is  for  him  the  narrative  of  the  emancipation 
of  philosophy  from  theology.  In  time,  he  hopes,  we  shall  be  in  pos- 
session of  "  a  method  which  will  make  religion  also  the  expression  of 
experience,  and  thus  dissipate  the  clouds  of  mystery  and  incredibil- 
ity which  have  so  long  concealed  the  clear  heavens."  Whether  the 
Positivist  "  Religion  of  Humanity  "  be  "  the  expression  of  experience  " 
is  best  known  to  the  hierophants  initiated  in  those  mystic  rites :  but 
that  this  is  not  what  religion  means  to  the  ordinary  consciousness  is 
obvious.  Possibly,  here  we  have  one  result  of  that  definition  of 
philosophy  which  makes  it  equivalent  to  analytic  science.  In  his 
special  lines,  Mr.  Lewes'  criticism  is  always  pertinent,  his  judgment 
clear,  and  his  conclusion  expressed  with  unmistakable  emphasis. 
As  an  historian  of  philosophy  he  has  his  favorites,  and  he  lets  his 
readers  know  clearly  who  they  are.  Any  genuine  analytical  power, 
however  imperfect  in  exercise,  he  always  admires;  which  explains, 
perhaps,  why  he  is  so  singularly  indulgent  to  Bishop  Berkeley,  and 
why  he  is  filled  with  such  true  respect  for  the  critical  work  of  Kant. 
But  meaningless  dialectic  he  abhors  and  despises:  and  next  to  his 
scathing  criticism  of  the  French  eclectics,  we  may  put  his  merciless 
and  (if  the  truth  may  be  said)  somewhat  inadequate  treatment  of 
Hegel.  As  a  psychologist,  he  has  developed,  in  independent  lines, 
the  system  of  Herbert  Spencer,  and  has  completely  severed  himself 
from  all  affinity  with  the  simple  sensationalism  of  Condillac. 

In  company  with  Mr.  Lewes,  but  not,  perhaps,  equally  deserving 
of  the  name  of  philosophers,  come  a  host  of  writers,  mainly  scien- 


MODERN  PHILOSOPHICAL     THOUGHT.  501 

title,  amongst  wliom  we  may  specif}  the  names  of  Din-win,  Carpenter, 
/  Maudsley,  MoreU,  Sully,  and  as  pure  savants,  TyndaU  and   Huxley. 
Of  these,  probably,  Darwin  has  had  most  influe  ice  in  fashioning, 
or  at  least  instigating,  popular  modes  of  thought  and  expression. 
"The  Origin  of  Species,"  "The  Descent  of  Alan,"  "The  Expression 
of  the  Emotions,"  have  probably  been  more  widely  read  than  usu- 
ally falls  to  the  lot  of  scientific  books.     P  ir  bo  long  as  savants  lal 
in  the  Bpecial  departments  of  science,  public  opinion  is  excessively 
tolerant,  for  the  simple  reason  that  its  incuriousness  is  only  equ  illed 
by  its  ignorance;  but  as  soon  as  the  held  of  minute  inquiry  is  ( 
behind,  and  some  wide  generalization  is  attempted,  some  startling 
law  exhibited,  which  touches  the  general  thoughts  and  feelin 
'  the  common  mass,  then  at  once  public  opinion  gets  aroused  and 
angry,  and  ignorance  degenerates  into  something  very  akin  to  blind 
bigotry.     This  is  a  mere  matter  of  history  and  does  not  affect  either 
way  the  truth  or  the  untruth  of  the  opinions  that  have  aroused  the 
storm.     As  long  as  Darwin  studied  the  phenomena  of  the  world  of 
pigeons,  or  threw  new  light  on  the  question  of  instinct,  he  was  left 
alone  in  his  study  to  pursue  his  scientific  experiments;  but  when 
a  result  of  these  experiments,  there  came  forth  the  great  law  of  the 
evolution  of  the  human  race  from  lower  organizations  by  mean 
the   "Struggle  for  Existence"  and  the  "Survival  of  the   Pi 
mankind,  perhaps  naturally,   resented  a  theory  which  established 
their  kinship  with  a  lower  creation.     The  same  was  the  ease  in  a 
lesser  degree  with  Professor  TyndaU     He  might  pursue  his  science 
/  and  his  pleasure  in  the  Alps  as  long  as  he  liked,  but  when  be  pro- 
pounded a  theory  about  the  origin  of  things  in  a  Belfast  address, 
the  popular  consciousness  felt  itself  injured  in  its  belief  in  the  Book 
of  Genesis.     For  there  are  two  subjects  with  which  ordinary  human 
nature  will  not  permit  any  liberties  to  be  taken — its  origin  and  its 
decease;  it  pursues  with  relentless  hatred  materialists  and  Positiv- 
ists,  professors  of  evolution,  and  deni  srs  of  the  soul's  immortality; 
and  in  quite  recent  days  Pn  '.'•  ssor  Hackel  of  Jena,  has  stirred  up 
this  opposition  anew.     In  the  wild  but  virtuous  indignation  of  "  the 
organs  of  public  opinion,"  some  ignorance  may  possibly  I  id 

of  what  "a  scientific  hypothesis"  really  means,  some  convenient 
getfulness  that  the  methods  of  inquiry  which  make  them  so  an 
are  precisely  those  which  bave  taugbl  as  the  facts  of  astronomy, 
won  for  us  the  material  comforts  of  our  civilization.      But    the   I 
torian  cannot  overlook  the  fact  that  these  struggles  to  and  fro,  fch< 
heart-burnings,  these  contentions  b  ifcween  the  Church  and  the  lab- 
oratory, religion  and  science,  are  but  so  many  indications   of  the 


502  ENGLAND. 


profound  unrest  of  modern  thought,  varying  and  antagonistic  ele- 
ments, which  prove,  as  clearly  as  they  can,  the  transitional  charac- 
ter of  our  age.  The  lines  of  the  reconstruction  can  hardly  yet  be 
guessed — whether  the  issue  is  to  be  an  armed  neutrality  between 
religion  and  science,  and  a  clear  division  of  territory  between  them, 
or  the  triumph  of  science  and  experience,  or,  as  some  think  not 
improbable,  the  renascence  of  religion  in  the  form  of  a  philosophy. 
Whichever  it  be,  one  thing  is  clear,  that  these  scientific  conceptions 
of  evolution,  of  development,  of  analysis,  of  biology,  have  gained 
and  are  gaining  an  increasing  hold  on  the  modern  world.  We  find 
them  in  our  newspapers,  in  our  magazines,  in  our  poetry,  in  our 
novels;  analysis,  triumphant  and  victorious,  is  seen  on  every  page 
of  Browning's  verse,  in  every  paragraph  of  George  Eliot's  latest 
novels.  A  hero  is  not  drawn  in  some  flash  of  constructive  genius, 
as  he  would  be  in  a  great  creative  age  like  that  of  Shakespeare,  but 
built  up,  piece  by  piece  by  single  traits  and  characteristics,  amidst  a 
mass  of  reflections,  after  the  manner  of  a  critical,  analytic,  transi- 
tional age  like  that  which  is  the  jjarent  of  Daniel  Derondas.  The 
very  word  "  evolution  "  has  lost  its  scientific  meaning,  and  we  now 
talk  of  the  evolution  of  a  plot  in  a  three-volume  novel.  Whether 
the  future  be  with  the  Darwins  or  Huxleys  we  know  not,  but  it  is 
abundantly  clear  that  the  present  is  on  their  side.  To  deplore  the 
fact  is  as  useless  as  to  ignore  it;  it  is  to  condemn  ourselves  to  hope- 
less sterility.  "  Toute  cause  qui  hait  son  temps  se  suicide."  More 
interesting  and  more  profitable  it  is  to  attempt  to  see  how  the  fu- 
ture, with  its  wondrous  power  of  reconciling  contraries,  will  as- 
similate scientific  conclusions  with  that  vast  body  of  pre-existent 
popular  thought,  which  science  may  be  said  as  yet  to  have  scarcely 
leavened. 

One  element  in  such  a  reconciliation  must  undoubtedly  be  fur- 
nished by  the  influence  on  England  of  German  thought.  This 
influence  we  have  reserved  to  the  last,  because  its  reality  and  per- 
manence have  often  been  unjustly  questioned,  and  because  no  can- 
did historian  can  help  allowing  the  fact  that  it  is  in  itself  alien  to 
the  English  temper  and  English  modes  of  thought.  Somewhat 
fitful,  in  fact,  and  spasmodic  has  been  in  England  the  German 
invasion  of  ideas.  In  quite  recent  times  we  may  discriminate  be- 
tween two  periods  of  this  influence — the  first  of  which  may  be  said 
to  have  already  passed  away,  and  the  second  to  be  but  just  begin- 
ning. English  reliance  on  science  and  experience  has,  of  course, 
continuously  allied  itself  with  the  empirical  philosophers  of  Ger- 
many, but  the  deeper  thoughts  and  the  metaphysical  sj'sterns  of 


MODERN  PHILOSOPHICAL    THOUGHT.  509 

the  one  country  have  had  io  wait  upon  the  appearances  of  somewhat 

rare  spirits  iu  the  other,  before  they  could  become  known  and,  for 
the  time  at  Least,  naturalized.     One  such  rare  spirit  was  found  in 

Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  horn  in  1772.      In  L798  lie  went  for  some 
time  t<>  Germany  to  study  the  philosophy  of  Kant.     In    L817  and 
lti'IS  he  poured  forth  upon  the  English  public  his  earnest  p 
against  the  philosophy  which  was  popular  anion--  them,  in  his  • 
ographia  Literaria "  and  his  "Aids  to  Reflection."    In  one  as] 
possibly,  he  might  be  called  reactionary,  for  he  was  lull  of  tin    tn 
of  Elizabeth  and  James,  and  the  greatest   period  of  English  I  tera- 
ture;  but  in  another  aspect  he  was  the  prophet,  seeing  from  a  moun- 
tain the  land  which  the  common  herd  had  not  the  wit  to  see,  ever 
warning  men   against  the   philosophical   writers   of  his  time,   t 
striving  to  awaken  some  feeling  for,  and  belief  in,  the  systems  of 
Jacobi,  and  Schelling,  and  Fichte,  always  insisting  on  a  distinction 

I  which  was  strange  to  the  English  intelligence — that  between  reason 
and  understanding — for  reason  to  Coleridge  was  the  organ  of  the 
higher  truths,  understanding  a  faculty  on  a  lower  scale,  a  faculty  of 
comprehension,  but  not,  like  the  other,  a  faculty  of  creative  thought. 
The  impulse  was  widely  extended  by  a  literary  feeling.  The  litera- 
ture of  Germany — Goethe,  and  Lessing,  and  Schiller — was  popular- 
ized for  the  first  time  in  England  by  the  labors  of  Edward  Bulwer 
/  Lytton,  Thomas  de  Quincey,  and  above  all,  Thomas  Carl  vie.  The 
last  is  a  unique  figure  in  the  literary  world,  passionate,  masterful, 
bizarre,  penetrated  through  and  through  with  German  thought, 
an  idealist,  a  poet  of  the  highest  type,  a  great  creative  genius,  a 
"laudator  temporis  acti,"  a  modern  Heraclitus,  dxorei v6s,  aivixrySj 
6xA.oA.6i8o/3os.  To  him  and  to  Coleridge  more  than  to  any  other 
writers,  we  owe  whatever  German  elements  are  to  be  found  in  our 
ordinary  thoughts.  To  him  was  due  that  naturalization  of  Kant, 
which  was  brought  about  by  Hamilton,  Mansel,  and  perhaps  Whe- 

i  well.  But  already  his  influence  is  waning,  and  he  is  no  longer  to 
the  younger  generation  of  the  present  day  what  he  was  to  contem- 
poraries of  De  Quincey. 

The  latest  phase  of  German  influence  is  literally  a  resurrection 
of  metaphysics  under  the  influence  of  Hegel.  Some  such  reaction 
was  historically  necessary  alter  the  exclusive  reign  of  science,  and 
ardent  spirits  are  possibly  inclined  somewhat  to  anticipate  it-  t 
Yet  that  after  a  due  submission  to  autocratic  "experience,"  ami  an 
obedient  relegation  of  metaphysics  to  the  limbo  of  morbid  idiosyn- 
crasies, some  such  resurgence  of  invincible  thought— so  little  lim- 
ited as  it  is  within  the  bounds  of  "experience"  (as  tin    English 


504  ENGLAND. 

school  understands  the  term) — was  to  be  looked  for  even  in  En- 
gland, is  apparent  to  any  student  of  the  history  of  philosophy,  with 
its  ceaseless  action  and  reaction,  strophe  and  antistrophe.  No 
better  definition  of  such  a  movement  can  be  found  than  in  Kant's 
definition  of  what  metaphysic  is,  "jenseit  der  Erfahrung  liegende 
Erkenntniss,"  a  cognition  which  lies  on  the  far  side  of  experience. 

And  so  it  comes  that  we  now  have  a  small  body  of  Hegelian 
writers — men  who  translate  Hegel,  who  think  like  Hegel,  who  are 
touched,  some  perhaps  almost  unconsciously,  by  Hegelian  dialectic. 
Chief  amongst  them  is  Dr.  Hutchinson  Stirling,  who  has  published 
"  The  Secret  of  Hegel "  and  in  his  edition  of  Sckwegler's  "  History 
of  Philosophy  "  has  warmly  replied  to  Mr.  Lewes'  attack  on  Hegel. 
In  Oxford,  which  has  never  been  quite  weaned  of  its  metaphysical 
tendencies,  a  similar  spirit  appears  in  Mr.  Wallace's  edition  of  "  The 
Logic  of  Kegel,"  and  Professor  Green's  "  Introduction  to  the  Works 
of  Hume."  To  these  might  be  added  Professor  Caird's  "  Kant,"  a 
criticism  of  the  philosopher  of  Konigsberg  which  is  wholly  Hegelian. 
Of  the  same  spirit  with  this  reaction  is  the  curious,  though  evan- 
escent, influence  in  England  of  Schopenhauer's  "Philosophy  of 
Pessimism,"  a  spirit  which  was  rampant  in  Byron  and  Byronic 
young  men,  but  is  intensely  alien  in  reality  to  English  thought. 
Pessimism  is,  of  course,  the  privilege  of  youth  in  most  countries; 
but  that  such  influence  could  make  any  way  at  all  in  our  uncon- 
genial atmosphere  is  in  itself  a  proof  of  the  reality  of  modern  Ger- 
man tendencies  in  this  island. 

What  the  exact  importance  or  influence  of  this  revival  of  Ger- 
man methods  in  philosophy  may  be  it  is  as  yet  probably  too  soon 
to  estimate.  The  prima  facie  objection  that  it  is  alien  to  our  national 
modes  of  thought  may  be  held  to  be  of  some  weight;  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  the  highest  English  thought  has  often  been 
touched  by  foreign  influences,  whether  it  be  the  Hebraic  "  passion 
for  righteousness"  which  animates  English  religion,  or  the  keen 
air  of  foreign  travel  which  blows  through  every  page  of  Elizabethan 
literature.  The  chief  interest,  however,  to  any  dispassionate  ob- 
server of  English  contemj>orary  thought,  who  yet  is  wearied  with 
the  struggle  of  priest  and  savant,  is  to  gauge  the  value  of  a  new  intel- 
lectual "  dej^arture  "  in  its  bearings  on  the  debatable  country  between 
Faith  and  Beason.  By  some  men  the  new  Hegelian  metaphysic, 
in  its  apotheosis  of  Beason,  may  be  hailed  as  providing  the  only 
substitute  which  a  cultured  and  enlightened  age  can  accept  for  the 
superannuated  phases  of  "  Faith,"  while  others  who  refuse  to  recog- 
nize in  such  new  garb  the  long-loved  features  of  the  religion  which 


MODERN  rillLOSOnilCAL    THOUGHT.  ,  \    '■ 

has  been  consecrated  to  them  in  lisping  utterances  learnt  at  a 
mother's  knee,  may  hold  at  arms'  length  the  doubtful  advanta 
of  novel,  though  generous  allies.  But  doubt  of  this  kind  as  to  the 
exact  value  of  a  new  form  of  philosophy  can  only  be  solved  by  time, 
and  to  time  we  must  look  to  decide  whether  the  leaves  of  I  hr  tr 
which  are  for  the  healing  of  the  nations,  and  which  have  been 
gathered  only  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane,  can  be  ever  found  in 
the  garden  of  the  Academe. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 

MODERN    CULTURE    AND    LITERATURE. 

General  Definition  and  View  of  Modem  Culture — Ascendency  in  it  of  the  Ro- 
mantic Spirit — First  Element  in  Culture:  the  Artistic — Art  an  Equalizing 
as  well  as  Humanizing  Agency — Advance  of  Domestic  Decorative  Art  since 
1851 — Influence  of  Mr.  Ruskin:  of  Art  Exhibitions — Improved  Taste  visible 
in  Furniture  and  Embroidery — In  Feminine  Dress — In  Home  Decorations 
■ — General  Characteristics  of  Modern  English  Painting — How  far  does  Mod- 
ern Art  reflect  the  Spirit  of  the  Age? — Explanation  of  the  Popiilarity  of  Pre- 
Raphaelite  Pictures,  and  Specimens  of  these — Whistler,  Moore,  Burne  Jones 
— The  Giorgionesque — Influence  of  Turner — Stimulus  given  to  Artistic  Im- 
pulse by  other  Art  Critics  than  Ruskin:  Hamerton,  Colvin,  Carr,  Wedrnore, 
Augustus  Hare — Development  of  Art  in  Great  Towns — Music  an  Element  in 
Modern  Culture — Are  we  a  Musical  Nation  ? — Music  as  reflecting  Spirit  of 
the  Age — Second  Element  in  Modern  Culture:  the  Scientific— Progress  and 
Organization  of  Science  in  England — Popular  and  Famous  Teachers  of  Sci- 
ence— Huxley,  Tyndall,  Lister,  Sir  Wyville  Thompson — Charm  of  Science 
to  Imagination — Influence  of  Science  (1)  upon  Literature,  (2)  upon  Relig- 
ion— Relation  of  Science  and  Religion — Pessimism — The  Pope  of  the  Fu- 
ture— Other  Elements  in  Modern  Culture:  Religion,  Travel,  Literature-  - 
General  Tendencies  of  the  Literature  of  the  Time — Reaction  against  purely 
Literary  Spirit— Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  Mr.  Pater,  Mr.  J.  A.  Symonds— Po- 
etry— Modern  Poetical  Schools — Mr.  Tennyson,  Mr.  Browning,  Mr.  Swin- 
burne, Mr.  Morris,  Mr.  Alfred  Austin — Novels — Novel-reading  Classes- 
Novelists:  Mr.  A.  Trollope,  Mr.  Charles  Reade,  Mr.  E.  Yates,  Mr.  Wilkie 
Collins,  Mrs.  Oliphant,  Mrs.  Linton,  &c,  &c. — Influence  of  George  Eliot- 
Miss  Broughton,  Miss  Braddon,  Mr.  L.  Oliphant,  <£c. — Other  Departments 
of  Prose  Literature — The  New  School  of  Historians — Mr.  Freeman,  Mr. 
Green,  Mr.  Froude — French  Influences  in  Contemporary  Literature — Mr. 
Frederic  Harrison  and  Mr.  John  Morley — Serial  Literature. 


WE  have  in  this  chapter  to  consider  one  of  the  most  represent- 
ative and  complex  products  of  nineteenth-century  England. 
When  we  speak  of  culture  we  mean  the  fusion  of  the  higher  influ- 
ences of  the  age,  artistic,  scientific,  religious,  and  literary.  Glimpses 
of  some  asjDects  of  the  many-sided  development  may  be  caught  in 
the  streets  of  London  and  in  other  of  our  great  cities,  in  drawing- 
rooms,  in  picture-galleries,  in  the  periodicals  of  the  day,  wherever 
men  and  women  meet  together  for  the  purpose  of  social  conversa- 
tion and  pleasure.     We  recognize  the  indications  of  its  presence  in 


MODERN   CULTURE   AND    LITERATURE.  507 

mam*  ways  and  by  many  outward  notes.  Sometimes  these  are  t<>  be 
discovered  in  old  china,  in  quaint  furniture]  in  antique  vrelv<  i  hang- 
ings, in  curiously  shaped  cabinets;  sometimes  in  a  rather  mystical, 

and,  to  uninstructed  hearers,  unintelligible  dialect;  Bometimes  in  a 
literary  style  remarkable  for  softness  rather  than  vigor. 

As  it  has  been  said  that  everyone  is  a  born  follower  either  o£ 
Aristotle  or  Plato,  so  every  age  maybe  described  as  being  mainly 
classical  or  romantic  in  its  tendencies.  Romanticism  is  certainly  in 
the  ascendant  during  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century ,  both 
in  poetry  and  in  household  paraphernalia.  It  is  the  ago  of  man- 
sions built,  as  to  their  exterior,  in  the  style  of  Queen  Anne,  but 
nothing  more  ahen  to  the  spirit  of  the  literature  of  that  epoch  than 
their  interior  could  well  be  found.  The  genius  of  the  romantic 
eminently  suits  a  tune  at  which  the  beauty  of  color  is  worshipped  as 
superior  to  the  beauty  of  form.  This  preference  it  is  which  is  the 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  romantic  school,  whether  in  art 
or  literature.  What  the  particular  poets  of  the  period — Mr.  Swin- 
burne, Mr.  Morris,  Mr.  Posetti — are  in  literature,  Mr.  Whistler  and 
Mr.  Albert  Moore  are  in  art.  Theirs  are  the  poems,  and  theirs  the 
pictures,  in  which  it  is  natural  that  a  cultured  public,  fascinated  by 
peacock  rooms,  should  delight.  There  is  a  sex  hi  taste  even  as 
there  is  in  flowers:  and  the  sex  which  for  the  most  part  prevails 
just  now  not  more  in  art  than  in  literature  and  religion  is  feminine. 
As  are  the  rooms  we  live  in,  so  are  the  libraries  which  they  contain. 
What  Mr.  Swinburne  is  among  poets,  Mr.  Black,  Mr.  Blackmore, 
Miss  Thackeray  (Mrs.  Ritchie)  are  among  novelists — skilled,  each  of 
them  in  the  grouping  of  rich  and  varied  tints,  sometimes  dazzling, 
often  lulling  the  senses  and  causing  them  to  sink  into  a  slun 
quisitely  sweet,  but  troubling  themselves  comparatively  little,  if  at  all, 
to  attain  to  severity  of  outline  or  classical  symmetry  of  proportions. 

Art  in  the  present  decade  is  not  only  a  great  humanizing,  but  a 
great  equalizing,  power.     The  interchange  of  esthetic  sympathies, 
the  compelling  power  of  the  brush  and  the  studio — were  we  speak- 
ing now  of  matters  theatrical,  it  might  be  added,  oJ  <; — 
have  become  the  instruments  of  a  new  kind  of  class  fusion. 
jxrofessional  house   decorator  is  no  longer  a  mere   trad           i   or 
tradesman's  employe.     He  is  an  artist,  and  he  is  entitled  to  red 
the  treatment  of  a  gentleman.     But  on  a  larger  sea!"  than  t; 
in  matters  more  important,   art  is  a  great   leveler.     It 
much,  is  doing  much  now,  to  give  to  the  dairj   lif    of  m 
England,  a  grace  and  finish,  the  absence  of  which  was  Long  and  bit- 
terly  deplored  by  esthetic  reformers.     It  is  unlocking  the  door  to  a 


508  ENGLAND. 

multitude  of  educating  perceptions  which  have  been  systematically 
closed.  It  is  imbuing  with  a  sense  of  refinement — aristocratic  in 
the  best  meaning  of  the  word — the  middle-class  households  of  the 
land.  Contrast  the  domestic  interiors  drawn  in  Punch  by  John 
Leech,  about  and  before  the  time  of  the  Hyde  Park  Exhibition 
of  1851,  with  those  sketched  by  Mr.  Du  Maurier,  and  then  judge 
of  the  interval  which  has  been  traversed.  Fireplaces  ornamented 
with  Dutch  tiles,  carved  oak  chimney-pieces,  costly  wall-papers, 
dadoes,  and  all  the  other  most  perfect  appliances  and  apparatus 
in  which  the  artistic  soul  delights,  may  not  be  within  the  reach  of 
every  one.  But  little  objects  conceived  in  the  true  artistic  spirit, 
and  eloquent  of  the  distinguishing  tone  of  modern  culture,  which 
give  a  pretty  air  of  finish  of  the  right  kind  even  to  an  apartment 
crowded  by  sins  against  the  true  esthetic  canons,  may  be  bought 
wonderfully  cheap.  It  is  something,  surely,  that  the  Philistine  Brit- 
ish public,  against  whom  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  has  inveighed  so  often 
and  so  bitterly,  has  learned  the  use  of  the  tints  of  pale  olive,  faint 
blue,  dull  yellow  in  its  wall-papers,  and  sees,  in  the  rich  effect  when 
a  glass  with  scarlet  chrysanthemums  is  placed  against  that  back- 
ground, what  its  true  meaning  is.  How  full  of  rest  those  dreamy 
curves  and  subdued  tints  are  is  best  known  to  invalids,  condemned 
formerly  to  gaze  from  a  bed  of  sickness  on  brilliant  green  wreaths 
or  combinations  of  roses  tied  in  impossible  knots,  and  depicted  in 
impossible  hues. 

The  names  of  two  individuals  and  of  two  institutions  are  prom- 
inently connected  with  this  awakening  on  the  part  of  the  English 
public  at  large  to  the  new  artistic  life — the  late  Prince  Consort  and 
Mr.  Euskin  on  the  one  hand;  the  Exhibition  of  1851  and  South 
Kensington  on  the  other.  Few  men  in  the  history  of  a  nation  have 
ever  lent  so  powerful  an  influence  to  its  scientific,  artistic — some 
will  add  political — development  as  the  husband  of  Queen  Victoria. 
His  taste  and  example  gave  an  immense  stimulus  to  the  popularity 
of  music.  His  encouragement  was  a  signal  advantage  to  British 
painting  and  sculpture  and  science.  The  world's  fair  in  Hyde 
Park,  when  the  present  century  had  arrived  at  middle  age,  was 
not  only  the  first  of  a  series  of  international  exhibitions,  but  did  for 
art  with  the  English  public  what  Socrates  did  for  philosophy  when 
he  brought  it  down  from  the  gods  to  men — taught  the  English 
people  that  the  goddess  might  be  domiciled  in  a  middle-class  En- 
glish home  as  well  as  in  a  Venetian  palace.  Had  it  not  been  for 
Prince  Albert,  this  event,  which  marks  an  era  in  the  history  of  the 
humanities  in  tins  country,  might  never  have  taken  place.     The 


MODERN   CULTURE   AND    LITERATURE. 

I  work  which  the  Exhibition  began  South  Kensington  has  contin      L 
To  say  that  South  Kensington  might  have  held  up  a  higher  standard 

and  abetter  model  of  artistic  imitation  to  ihe  Km  lis! i  public  tb 
it  lias  done  is  not  to  destroy  its  claim  to  grateful 
influence  has  been  in  the  direction  of  sweetness  and  light.     It  has 
inspired  the  mothers  and  daughters  of  England  witi  which, 

if  they  have  about  them  nothing  that  is  heroic,  have  about  them  also 
nothing-  that  is  not  refining.     It  is  the  School  of  Art  Needlewoi  b 
South  Kensington  which,  aided  by  that  loving  study  of  nature  for 
which  the  present  generation  is  indebted  to  Mr.  Buskin,  iven 

us,  instead  of  the  tasteless  antimacassars  of  old,  chair-covers  em- 
broidered with  such  wreaths  of  jessamine,  honeysuckle,  or  Vir- 
ginia creeper,  as  we  may  see  trailed  along  a  garden  wall  or  bower. 
Screens  and  chairs  embroidered  with  delicate  white  acacia  or  labur- 
num, with  pink  and  white  hawthorn  and  myrtle;  or  else  tapestried 
with  larger  designs  of  birds,  and  even  with  effects  of  trees  and 
water;  curtains  covered  with  pomegranate  or  orange,  fruits,  and 
flowers;  d'oyleys  worked  with  field  flowers:  all  these  unquestion- 
ably indicate  a  great  advance  on  the  style  in  which  our  drawing- 
rooms  were  ornamented  at  the  time  of  the  Exhil  iti  m  of  1851.  In 
other  words,  we  have,  thanks  to  Mr.  Ituskin,  learned  to  replace  I 
conventional  by  the  results  of  that  reverent  study  of  nature  which 
the  author  of  "Modern  Painters"  has  done  more  than  any  man 
living  to  promote.  He  it  is  who  has  taught  those  whose  lot  is  <-:>st 
in  these  latter  days  not  only  to  love  nature,  but  to  discover  a  world 
of  subtle  and  infinite  beauty  in  her  simplest,  lowlie  :  in  the 

very  mosses  which  grow  at  our  feet,  and  which,  as  he  exquisil 
reminds  us,  cover  with  their  soft  tapestry  the  last  couch  of  earthly 
rest.     ""When  all  other  service,"  he  writes  in  "Modern   Pah 
"is  vain  from  plant  and  tree,  the  soft  mosses  and  gray  lichens  I 
up  their  watch  by  the   headstone.     The  woods,  the  blossoms,   the 
gift-bearing  grasses,  have  done  their  part  for  a  time,  but  these  do 
service  forever.     Trees  for  the  builder's  yard,  flowers  for  the  brid 
chamber,  corn  for  the  granary,  moss  for  the  grave." 
I         Those  who  have  heard  Mr.  Ruskin  in  his  Oxford  lectures  dwell 
with  delight  on  the  exquisite  beauty  of  the  strawberry-plant,  li 
flower,  fruit,  and  stem,  can  never  see  it  without  remembering  the 
glowing  words  thai  taught  them  how  much  perfection  of  outline 
and  coloring  they  had  too  often  suffered  to  pass  under  their  e; 
unheeded.     So,  too,  has  he  pointed  out  to  us  the  mystic  beauty  of 
the  olive-tree,  with  its  dim  foliage,  delicate  blossoms,  and  dark  IV 
— which  even  the  great  southern  masters  of  painting  overlo 


510  ENGLAND. 

possibly,  because  it  was  so  near  them — and  of  countless  other  things 
in  earth  and  air  and  water. 

The  faculty  of  seeing  more  than  meets  the  careless  eye,  and  the 
cultivation  of  the  faculty,  have  had  other  valuable  effects  than  those 
which  are  purely  artistic.  By  degrees  our  middle  class  are  becom- 
ing gradually  disabused  of  the  vulgar  idea  that  a  large  outlay  is 
required  for  the  tasteful  arrangement  of  our  rooms.  The  fact  is 
recognized  that  the  true  artist  can  work,  and  work  well,  with  the 
very  simplest  materials.  And  these  influences  are  already  becom- 
ing visible  in  the  dress  of  women.  What  is  chiefly  conspicuous  in 
modern  feminine  fashions  is  the  latitude  of  personal  choice,  the  op- 
portunity of  individualism  in  costume  which  they  allow,  and  above 
all  things,  the  revolt  against  the  Parisian  dressmaker.  There  is 
certainly  much  less  of  rigid  conformity  to  a  single  type  than  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  crinoline,  or  during  the  interval  which  immediately 
followed,  when  ladies  emulated  in  the  limpness  of  their  robes  the 
appearance  of  one  who  might  have  just  been  immersed  in  a  duck- 
pond.  Nor  does  this  hold  true  of  dress  only.  Half  a  decade  or  a 
decade  since  the  feminine  hair  was  dressed  after  one  uniform  pat- 
tern quite  irrespective  of  the  contour  and  requirements  of  head  and 
face.  Of  course,  a  prevailing  mode  there  still  is — or,  more  correctly, 
two  or  three  prevailing  modes.  But  within  certain  and  tolerably 
elastic  limits  there  is  a  very  considerable  width  of  choice  allowed. 
In  other  words,  ladies  are  rightly  claiming  and  discreetly  exercising 
more  of  an  intelligent  and  personal  initiative  than  they  have  ever 
before  done.  The  fact  is  gradually  being  recognized  that  dress 
really  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  the  physical  form  as  language 
does  to  thought,  and  that  as  for  each  variety  of  the  latter  there  is 
the  expression  which  is  most  appropriate,  so  in  the  case  of  the 
former  there  must  be  a  reasonable  artistic  relation  between  the 
garment  worn  and  the  person  wearing  it.  Thus  it  is  that  art  has 
descended  from  the  cold  heights  on  which  she  once  dwelt  apart, 
and  has  thrown  the  grace  of  her  presence  over  the  familiar  objects 
of  every-day  life.  It  is  a  further  eminently  satisfactory  quality  in 
the  feminine  costume  of  to-day  that  improvements  in  taste  and 
economy  to  a  great  extent  go  together.  Comparatively  few  ladies 
can  afford  such  a  dress  as  was  exhibited  at  the  School  of  Art  in  187C, 
and  afterwards  sent  to  the  Philadelphia  Exhibition;  but  many,  hap- 
pily, can  now  work,  and  even  design,  borders  of  fruit  and  flowers, 
which  give  grace  and  character  to  the  simplest  costume,  or  paint 
sprigs  of  blossoms  or  clusters  of  flowers  on  the  surface  of  silk  and 
muslin  skirts. 


f 


MODERN   CULTURE    AXD    LITERATURE.  .".11 

Even  the  domestic  recreations  of  English  homes  in  the  presen! 
day  illustrate  the  beneficent  and  humanizing  power  of  the  artistic 
spirit.  Painting  on  china  is  a  graceful  art.  which  is  now  qoI  a 
little  practiced,  and  which  has  received  special  encouragement  from 

the  Princess  Imperial  of  Germany.     Blue  and  white  chi]  les, 

dainty  watteau  groups  on  china  plates  or  terra-cotta  may  1»'  exe- 
cuted by  every  one  who  has  artistic  taste  and  leisure  to  cultivate  it. 
It  is  a  common  and  a  welcome  sight  to  see  the  young  ladi< 
English  family  employed  in  decorating  the  earthenware  cups  and 
jugs  manufactured  and  used  hy  the  peasants  at  Dinan — which  may 
be  bought  for  a  few  sous,  and  which  take  oil-paint  perfectly-  -with 
a  little  design  of  poppies  or  daisies  that  converts  the  jar  or  cup  at 
once  into  an  elegant  article.  Here  one  may  surely  trace,  in  how- 
ever imperfect  a  manner,  a  humble  realization  of  the  fancy  illus- 
trated by  Mr.  Longfellow  in  "Keramos" — the  graceful  volume  of 
verse  in  which  he  sings  so  well  the  art  that  was  a  passion  with  Ber- 
nard Palissy,  the  Huguenot  potter. 

When  we  approach  the  subject  of  modern  English  art,  as  em- 
bodied in  the  creations  of  the  contemporary  painter,  we  are  in  the 
presence  of  a  difficult  and  delicate  theme,  which  cannot  here  be 
dwelt   upon   with   any   pretence   to    completeness.     It  is  cl  ' 

against  the  latter-day  school  of  English  painters  that  their  art 
and  imagination  are  divorced  from  the  stirring  events  of  the  time; 
that  the  atmosphere,  social,  political,  scientific,  abounds  in  id< 
which  might  well  stimulate  them  to  heroic  efforts;  that  they  lack 
the  courage  to  grasp  or  the  fancy  to  illustrate  these;  that  if  they 
exercise  their  fancy  upon  circumstances  of  English  life  they  por- 
tray nothing  nobler  than  a  scene  in  a  parlor  or  on  a  lawn,  on  the 
downs  at  Epsom,  or  at  the  railway  station  of  Charing  Cross;  that 
the  only  type  of  the  knight  of  chivalry  whom  they  can  see  in  con- 
temporary society  is  the  well-dressed  young  guardsman;  and  that 
their  loftiest  visions  of  womanly  nobility  and  beauty  are  to  be  dis- 
covered in  the  persons  of  a  bevy  of  pretty  young  ladies  stand 
before  a  picture  or  engaged  in  a  game  of  lawn  tennis.  In  a  word, 
our  painters,  when  they  do  not  devote  themselves  to  th<  Q  of 

history,  allegory,  and  legend,  have,  according  to  this  view,  lost  the 
secret  of  the  "grand  style."  Hence,  it  is  alleged,  the  real  traditions 
and  the  true  and  best  idiosyncrasies  of  English  art  arc  not  to  be 
found  in  the  painters  of  the  period.  They  do  noi  id!.  ,  I  English 
character  as  Hogarth,  Wilkie,  Turner,  and  Gainsborough  did.  En- 
glish character  is  full  of  enterprise  and  daring,  ;s  consumed  by  a 
restless  thirst  for  action,  is  always  eager  for  veritably  imperial  uu- 


512  ENGLAND. 

dertakings.  Where,  it  is  asked  despairingly,  can  we  look  for  any 
evidence  of  this  in  contemporary  English  art  ?  And  yet  we  are  re- 
minded, in  the  words  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  "  the  ideal  perfection 
and  beauty  are  not  to  be  sought  in  the  heavens,  but  upon  the  earth. 
They  are  about  us  and  upon  every  side  of  us."  The  whole  of  this 
question  was  ably  discussed,  though  exclusively  from  one  stand- 
point, by  a  writer  in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  February,  1879.  "  To 
represent  action,"  said  the  writer,  "in  some  form  or  another,  is  the 
aim  of  every  great  painter.  In  landscape,  for  example :  how  full  of 
action  is  the  painting  of  Turner,  who  may  be  truly  said  to  have  in- 
vented the  great  style  in  this  branch  of  the  art.  The  different 
lights  and  the  far  distances  of  his  pictures  blend  in  extraordinary 
sympathy  with  the  human  associations  of  the  scene.  His  'Rise,' 
and  '  Decline  of  Carthage,'  and  his  '  Fighting  Temeraire,'  though 
the  representation  of  human  life  in  these  is  entirely  subordinate, 
have  all  the  feeling  of  a  great  tragic  poet.  They  seize  the  unseen 
worth  or  character  of  the  subject."     Now  it  is  just  this  "  action  " 

,  which  is  complained  of  as  being  conspicuously  absent  from  the 
most  noticeable  of  modern  pictures.  Thus,  Mr.  Brett's  "  Cornish 
Lions "  is  a  beautiful  presentation  of  a  dazzling  blue  sea,  illumi- 
nated by  a  sunshine  so  brilliant  as  to  make  each  cranny  and  inden- 
tation in  the  cliff  visible.  But  the  general  effect  of  the  picture  ap- 
pears to  this  critic  "to  be  that  of  suspended  life."  The  same  tost 
is  applied  to  Mr.  Hcrkomer,  whose  picture  of  "Evening  in  the 
Workhouse,"  with  its  predominant  tone  of  somber,  hopeless  peace, 
is  contrasted  with  Wilkie's  "  Blind  Fiddler  "  and  "  Blind  Man's 
Buff";  to  Mr.  Long,  who,  it  is  admitted,  has  a  keen  dramatic  sense, 
but  who,  in  his  Egyptian  picture  "  The  Making  of  the  Gods,"  per- 
sists in  employing  it  in  realizing  the  idea  of  an  obsolete  superstition ; 
to  Mr.  Marks,  who,  it  is  deplored,  gives  up  to  dumb  animals  that 
faculty  of  active  and  energizing  creation  which  was  surely  meant 
for  humankind.  To  sum  up :  the  three  chief  faults  of  our  modern 
pictorial  art,  in  the  opinion  of  a  writer  whose  competence  and  rep- 
resentative position  entitle  his  views  to  consideration,  are  these — 

.  first,  the  want  of  lifelike  vigor  and  action;  secondly,  the  alienation 
of  artistic  fancy  from  the  stirring  events  of  the  time ;  and  thirdly, 
if  contemporary  history  is  resorted  to,  the  selection  of  unworthy 
and  commonplace  scenes  and  incidents.  There  is,  of  course,  a  pro- 
test against  the  feeble  realism  in  the  modes  of  thought  prevalent 
among  a  certain  section  of  society,  and  these  modes  of  thought  are 
bodied  forth  on  some  of  the  canvases  of  the  period.  Thus,  the  critic 
writes : — 


MODERN   CULTUR1 

"Those  who  last  summer  visited  thi 
a  region  from  which  t  t  and  the  I 

Iff  ,  been  offended  in  the  Academy  with  the  Bomewhat  lavish  imital 

of  ]  might  lure  Bolace  .  i  ith  pure  abstraction;  if,  in 

Burlington  House,  they  had  b  si  me  diflL 

atmosphere  of  modern  society,  hero  at  least  they  might  retire  into 

might  listen  to  the  pastoral  pipe  of  thi    I  .  roam 

rocks  and  mountains  that  appeared  to  Lave  Btrayed  out   of  the   picturi  -  of 
Benozzo  Gozzoli,  or  ransack  their  memories  before  the  faces  of  knights  and 

angels  whose  acquaintance  they  i'ancii  '•  had  made   lon|  • 

canvas  of  Giorgione  or  Sandro  Botticelli.    Sun  ly  hi  re,  it"  anywhei 
found  that  artistic  generalization,   that  imag  i  Sir  J     bua 

B  ynolds  declared  to  he  the  characteristic  of  thi 

rep:  Lve  painters  of  the  Grosvenor  Gallery  had  a  of 

action  than  the  painters  of  I  demy  :  for  if  the  latter  restricted  themsi  I  >>  s 

to  imitation,  at  least  they  imitated  actual  life,  but  the  former  merely  imit 
certain  peculiarities  in  the  style  of  the  old  masters.     Mr.  Burne  Jones  is  the 
chief  master  of  this  school.     His  picture  entitled   'Laus  Veni  ris'  i 
a  number  of  ladies  sitting  in  the  foreground,  gorgeously  attired,  and  in  the 
background  some  knights  in  white  armor  looking  in  at  a  window  as  they  rode 
by.     The  women  in  the   chief  group  were   doing  nothing.     They  had  even 
stopped  singing  the  praises  of  Venus,  which,  it  appears,  was  their  sole  resource 
for  passing  the  time.     They  had  all  one  type  of  face,  one  morbid  kind  of  com- 
plexion, one  monotonous  expression,  which  culminated  in  the  figure  of  the 
Queen,  who,  with  her  Beat  thrust  back  from  the  rest,  her  crown  on  her  km 
and  her  feet  far  extended  in  front  of  her,  seemed  to  have  resigned  herself  to 
the   dominion  of  ennui.    A  similar  somnolent  languor  pervaded   Mr.  Job 
'Chant  d'Amonr';  indeed,  so  potent  was  its  influence,  that  a  Cupid,  who  had 
been  apparently  borrowed  from  Botticelli  for  the  purpose  of  blowing  the  bi  !- 
lows  of  an  organ — which  for  some  reason  the  female  musician  has  chosen  to 
play  on  the  top  of  a  wall — had  actually  fallen  asleep  at  his  work.     In  like 
manner  the  abstractions  of  'Day  and  Night'  and  the  'Four  Season  i'  indie  |    i 
not  the  action  of  light  and  darkness,  nor  the  variety  of  generation  and  pro- 
duction, but  the  perpetual  presence  in  the  painter's  mind  of  thoughts  on  revo- 
lution and  decay." 

"What  is  there  to  he  said  on  Hie  other  side  of  thri  question,  not 
so  much  as  regards  the  technical  merii  of  modi  ich 

is  not  now  the  quality  in  di  on  the  subjed  of  tli--  r  lation 

existing  between  the  time  and  the  works  of  ]  I  art  which  it 

produces?    Before  we  pass  to  this  that 

while  there  is  much  that  may  yearly  disappoint  :m<l  anger  11 
of  art  on  the  walls  of  Burlington  House — much  which,  when  one 
compares  the  crudity  of  coloring  and  the  hastiness  of  outline  with 
the  mellow  glow  on  the  canvas  of  French  or  Bel|  tan  artists,  might 
tempt   Continental  masters   of  the   art    I"   reverse   t lio  saj 
Correggio  when  he  first  saw  Raphael's  masterpiece:  "And   I 
am  a  painter!" — there  is  still  one  charming  branch  of  art  in  whi  b 
33 


514  ENGLAND. 

the  supremacy  remains  to  England.  English  water-colors  are,  and 
are  likely  to  be,  unrivalled.  David  Cox's  "Hayfields";  Midler's 
"Eastern  or  English  Scenes";  De  Whit's  "Church  by  the  Banks  of 
a  Winding  River,"  at  South  Kensington;  George  Mason's  pictures 
of  "  Girls  dancing  by  the  Sea,"  "  The  Harvest  Moon,"  "  The  Even- 
ing Hymn,"  exhibited  a  few  years  ago  at  the  Burlington  Fine  Arts 
Club;  Pinwell's  "Mother  of  Thomas  a  Becket  reaching  London,"  a 
work  of  dream-like  beauty;  Frederick  Walker's  exquisite  collection 
of  drawings  and  sketches — the  memorial  of  genius  too  early  lost  to 
us— among  which,  "The  Right  of  Way,"  "The  Fisher  Boy,"  are 
perhaps  the  most  perfect:  these  constitute  sufficiently  conclusive 
proofs  of  the  superiority  of  English  painters  in  water-colors. 

Nor  is  it  fair,  or  even  intelligent,  to  speak  in  the  language  of  un- 
qualified depreciation  of  the  Grosvenor  Gallery  and  the  school  of 
art  which  it  represents.  The  extravagances  of  that  school  may  seem 
sufficiently  glaring.  Yet  if  there  is  much  in  it  which  is  crude  and 
fantastic,  there  is  much,  too,  which  is  fruitful  in  promise  and  rich  in 
ideas.  And  many  of  these  ideas  are  an  integral  portion  of  the  true 
inspiration  of  the  time  in,  and  the  scenes  amid,  which  we  live.  Take 
the  case  of  the  wan  figure  of  Autumn  in  the  tableaux  of  the  seasons, 
each  of  them  entirely  different  from  the  received  types,  with  the 
legend  written  below : — 

"  London  Autumn,  here  I  stand, 
Worn  of  heart  and  weak  of  hand  ! 
Rest  alone  seems  good  to  me — 
Speak  the  word  and  set  me  free." 

It  was  a  sad,  perhaps  a  morbid,  view  of  Autumn  this,  but  it  was 
one  not  easily  forgotten.  Another  representative  specimen  of  this 
school  of  art  may  be  witnessed  in  the  "Capture  of  Proserpine," 
where  the  "coal-black  steeds"  bear  the  chariot  upwards  into  the 
flowery  meadow  thick  with  narcissus,  while  across  the  pitch-black 
cavern  whence  they  issue  is  trailed  a  flower  of  deep  orange  or  flame 
color.  This  contrast,  the  effect  of  which  is  in  itself  highly  remarka- 
ble, is  eminently  characteristic  of  the  school,  and  may  be  seen  also 
in  the  memorial  window  erected  to  Frederick  Vyner  at  Oxford. 
The  designers  of  this  are  Messrs.  Morris  and  Burne  Jones,  and 
almost  all  the  color  is  concentrated  in  the  aureole  of  flame  about  the 
white-robed  figure.  Again,  whatever  affectation  there  may  be  in  the 
I  phraseology  applied  by  Mr.  James  Whistler  to  his  pictures — "  Noc- 
turnes," "Symphonies,"  "Caprices,"  it  cannot  be  denied  that  they 
have  a  copious  measure  of  suggestive  poetry.    The  shower  of  sparks 


MODERN   CULTURE    AND    LITERATURE.  615 

from  a  burning  house  thrown  on  the  dark  sky  of  night,  the  dim 
gleam  of  lamps,  like  gold  and  rod  stars  :!  i  mist,  idealizing  the 

effect  of  a  London  river  fog— surely  this  is  poetry;  such  .  as 

any  of  r.s  can  see  any  day  if  we  look  for  it. 

While  it  is  his  obscurer  effects  which  make  Turner,  who  is  I 
great  to  be  the  exclusive  possession  of  any  school  ial  favoi 

with  the  high  art  school,  Sandro  Botticelli  among  media  int- 

ers, with  his  quaint  serious  angels  and  Madonnas,  his  filmy  draperies 
and  flowery  backgrounds,  is  one  of  those  who  find  mosi  favor  with 
the  artists  in  colors  whose  corresponding  artists  in  words  arc  Wil- 
liam Morris  and  Philip  Bourke  Marston.  Nor  is  it  only  t<>  Sandro 
Botticelli  that  we  must  go  if  wo  would  find  the  original  sources  of 
these  inspirations.  Andrea  Mantegna,  more  grand  and  processional 
in  his  outlines  and  groupings,  is  yet  sufficiently  pre-Raphaelite  to 
please  the  school;  Giorgione  also,  in  spite  of  his  later  birth — the 
young  Venetian  whose  pictures,  lighted  from  within  as  it  wore,  by  a 
golden  glow — have  fed  the  fancy  of  the  neo-esthetic  sect.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  "  Giorgione  scpie  "  may  be  traced,  to  give  an*  illustration, 
in  Mr.  Albert  Moore's  "  Sapphires"- — a  woman's  figure  robed  in  loose 
draperies,  her  head  crowned  with  a  luminous  turban.  The  splendid 
glow  of  blue  and  orange  in  her  robes  and  jewels  is  gemlike,  trans- 
parent, and  radiant  with  splendor.  It  is  easier  for  the  uninitiated 
spectator  to  appreciate  the  beauty  of  pictures  such  as  these  than  of 
\  the  presentations  of  those  pallid  red-haired  figures,  worn  and  wast<  d, 
those  lank  forms  and  clinging  draperies,  which  are  much  affected  by 
this  school.  Perhaps  a  picture  of  Tissot — "Autumn'' — exhibited  at 
the  Grosvenor  Gallery  in  1878,  may  help  the  critic  in  some  degree 
towards  an  understanding  of  the  charm  which  may  be  found  in 
these  unlovely  forms  and  ghastly  visages.  The  charm  of  this  work 
does  not  he  entirely  in  Tissot's  masterly  foreshorten  ilia's  and  per- 
spectives. There  is  something  more  that  appeals  especially  to  the 
present  generation.  The  pale,  wistful  young  face,  turned  sadly  back 
to  us  for  a  moment,  wdiile  the  figure,  in  heavy  mourning  robes,  re- 
treats swiftly  along  under  the  chestnut-tree,  ami  the  autumn  wind 
sweeps  down  its  large,  yellow,  fanlike  leaves  and  scatt<  r 
thickly  along  her  path,  brings  a  message  full  of  meaning  to  the  heart 
of  many  a  spectator  in  these  days  of  sadness,  weariness,  unsatisfied 
yearning — a  spirit  which  is  expressed  in  that  eager  outlook  into 
futurity  called  by  the  Germans  "Sehnsueht."  Nor  may  it  only  bo 
that  this  kind  of  art,  while  certainly  not  representing  Engli  !■  char- 
acter, may  be  said  to  reflect  .1  certain  morbid  and  i  | 
of  English  thought.     It  may  also  be  regarded  as  a  reaction  t'r<>m  tho 


r 


16  ENGLAND. 


realism  which  pervades  so  much  of  the  art  that  is  purely  popular. 
From  these  pictures,  which  merely  give  us  the  outside  aspect  of 
things,  it  may  conceivably  be  a  relief  to  some  persons  to  turn  to 
those  into  which  the  curious  imagination  may  read  any  meaning  that 
it  chooses.  To  Turner,  it  has  been  said,  nothing  was  common  and 
unclean;  and  a  Mason  can  invest  with  grace  and  beauty  such  a  sub- 
ject as  "The  Clothes  Line."  These  are  the  cases  of  an  exceptional 
power;  and  it  is  perhaps  because  so  many  of  our  cleverest  painters 
fail  to  clothe  the  landscape  and  the  objects  which  they  depict  with 
the  hues  of  their  imagination  that  there  is  a  certain  public  which 
can  enjoy  the  fantasies  of  pre-Raphaelitism. 

There  are  other  features  yet  to  be  noticed  in  the  artistic  aspect 
of  modern  popular  culture.  Mr.  Ruskin  has  been  the  leader  of  the 
school  of  esthetic  prophets;  his  influence  has  germinated  to  such  an 
extent  that  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  literature  of  the  day  is 
purely  artistic.  First,  there  are  the  many  periodicals  devoted  to 
art— such  as  "L'Art,"  the  "Portfolio,"  and  "The  Magazine  of  Art," 
— with  their  careful  and  conscientious,  if  somewhat  artificially  sub- 
tle, criticisms,  and  then-  beautifully  executed  engravings;  then  there 
are  the  different  series,  issued  in  shilling  numbers,  with  a  view  of 
bringfine  home  the  rudiments  of  true  art  to  English  middle-class 
households;  lastly,  there  is  the  crowd  of  writers  upon  art  subjects 
who  have  efficiently  continued  the  work  that  Mr.  Ruskin  began. 
Mr.  P.  Gr.  Hamerton  is  at  once  an  accomplished  man  of  letters  and 
an  authority  upon  all  subjects  connected  with  the  studio.  The 
beauty  of  his  style  causes  his  works  to  be  eminently  pleasant  and 
popular  reading,  while  the  thorough  knowledge  of  his  subject  with 
which  he  writes  insensibly  develops  in  the  reader  an  artistic  feeling 
and  insight.  Distinguished  in  this  school  of  writing,  of  which  Mr. 
Hamerton  must  be  regarded  as  the  chief,  are  Mr.  W.  H.  Pater,  who 
may  almost  claim  to  be  the  parent  of  the  idea  of  the  "  Giorgion- 
esque  "  in  modern  literature  and  art,  Mr.  J.  A.  Symonds,  Professor 
Sidney  Cohan,  Mr.  J.  Comyns  Carr,  and  Mr.  F.  Wedmore.  Their 
books  would  be  in  demand  independently  of  their  subject,  and  they 
play  the  part  of  genuine  teachers  to  the  ordinary  circulating  library 
public,  because  there  is  nothing  pedagogic,  and  much  of  natural 
and  poetic  beauty,  in  their  manner.  It  is  also  to  be  noticed  that 
the  most  popular  literature  of  travel  is  that  which  is  specially 
i  adapted  to  the  taste  of  the  artistic  traveler.  Such  manuals  as  those 
written  by  Mr.  Augustus  Hare  not  only  contain  a  great  deal  of 
well-compiled  miscellaneous  information,  and  abound  in  extracts 
from  volumes  like  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  "Transformation"  and 


MODERN   CULTURE    AND    LITERATU&  .-,17 

Mr.  Story's  "Roba  di  Roma,"  but  display  consummate  Insight  into 
the  foibles,  vanities,  and  humors  of  the  age  for  which  thej  are  \. 
ten.     They  are  precisely  level  with  the  standard  of  modern  popul  ir 
culture,  are  written  mainly  from  the  art  point  of  view,  and  are  really 
guide-books  to  artistic  culture. 

While  a  taste  for  and  sympathy  with  arts,  which,  if  they  son 
times  assume  a  fantastic  and  artificial  shape,  uniformly  < 
humanizing  influence,  have  been  spreading  throughout  the  com- 
munity, the  State  has  recognized  the  duty  of  encouraging  and  sun- 
porting  art.     Within  the  last  half  century  there  has  been  witnee    d 
the   foundation  of   a   National  Gallery,  the  embellishment   of   I 
Houses  of  Parliament  with  an  interesting  series  of  historical  fres- 
coes, the  formation  at  South  Kensington  of  valuable  collect  inns, 
only  of  modern  pictures,  but  of  objects  of  decorative  and  of  indus- 
trial art,  and  of  a  department  of  State  charged  with  the  duty  of 

.    superintending  the  teaching  of  art  throughout  the  whole  country  by 
means  of  Schools  of  Design.*     Nor  has  provincial  England  falh  n 
short  of  the  active  enthusiasm  which,  in  the  capital,  has  been  dis- 
played by  the  State.    Government  grants  for  art  purposes  are  made 
to  Edinburgh  and  Dublin;  the  large  manufacturing  towns  receive 
nothing  from  the  State,  although  private  effort  in  them  accomplifi 
much.     It  would  certainly  seem  desirable  that  some  of  the  art; 
treasures  of  the  British  Museum  should  be  occasionally  I 
provincial  galleries.     Meanwhile,  in  Birmingham,   Sheffield,   Man- 
chester, Newcastle,  and  elsewhere,  the  penny  rate  levied   for   free 
libraries,  museums,  and  art  galleries,  liberally  supplemented  as  I 
has  been  by  private   donations,   has  accomplished   much,  and   has 
provided  an  elaborate  and  most  effective  machinery  tor  educating 
the  popular  eye  and  taste.     As  yet,  this  artistic  teaching  has  not 

I  done  much  for  the  improvement  of  the  architectural  aspect  of  our 
great  commercial  and  industrial  centers.     Yet  even  here  signs  arc 
not  wanting  that  we  have  taken  a  new  and  nobler  point  of  depart- 
ure.    There  are  structures  in  Liverpool  which  im  im- 
perial aspect,  worthy  of  the  great  place  it  occupies  in  our  national 
system;  again,  Manchester,  notwithstanding  its  unlovely  streets,  i 
boast  warehouses  of  truhj  palatial  appearance,  and  is  adorned  by  a 
pile  of  buildings,  erected  for  municipal  pur]           by  the  Oorpoi 
tion,  which  is  at  once  a  superb  specimen  of  the  genuinely  English 
I  othic  and  a  n<             ample  to  the  rest  of  the  United  Kingd< 
The  study  of  architecture  itself,  and  above  all,  the  architecture  of 

*  In  1878  there -were  consHrr'tlily  more  than  half  a  million  persons  n 
instruction  in  these  establishments. 


518  ENGLAND. 

the  Gothic  school,  have  exercised  an  important  influence  on  modern 
culture;  signs  have  been  -witnessed  of  the  revival  of  reality  in  oppo- 
sition to  sham,  and  it  is  much  that  oak  and  granite  should  be  super- 
seding spurious  stone  and  stucco. 

Among   the   individual  influences  to  which   the    cultivation   of 
artistic  tastes  may  be  ascribed,  prominence  has  been  already  given 

I  to  the  name  of  the  Prince  Consort.  "While  he  did  much  to  stimu- 
late art,  as  well  as  science,  it  is  probably  in  the  domain  of  music 
that  his  example  has  been  most  powerfully  felt  and  directly  fol- 
lowed. Art,  music,  and  the  drama,  each  of  them  represent  forces 
equally  active  amongst  the  English  middle  and  upper  classes.  The 
reproach  that  the  English  are  a  race  which  has  no  music  in  its  soul 
has  only  to  be  applied  to  our  existing  social  state  to  be  falsified  by 
peals  of  harmony  in  every  direction.  Music,  we  are  told  from  pul- 
pits and  platforms,  in  essays  and  in  sermons,  has  had  an  influence 
not  less  refining  than  that  of  art  upon  the  popular  taste,  and  the 
head  master  of  Uppingham  School,  one  of  the  most  successful 
school-masters  of  the  day,  considers  music  essential  to  the  education 
of  youth.     We  have  a  Royal  Academy  and  a  National  Training 

,  School  for  Music,  of  which  the  former  receives  an  annual  grant  of 
£500  from  Parliament.  Music  is  also  being  taught  in  the  element- 
ary schools  of  the  United  Kingdom;  and  experience  has  shown 
that  part-singing  very  often  brings  much  innocent  pleasure  to  the 

■  poorer  classes,  who  are,  probably,  worse  off  than  any  people  in  the 
world  for  innocent  amusements. 

If  it  cannot  be  said  that  in  England  modern  musical  taste  has 
resulted  in  the  production  of  any  composers  of  the  first  order,  it 
has  certainly  given  us  a  number  of  most  sympathetic  and  intelligent 
audiences.     Go  to  any  great  concert  in  any  large  town — notably  to 

;'  the  Monday  Popular  Concerts  held  in  London — and  the  chances  are 
that  a  considerable  minority  of  listeners  will  be  found  with  a  score- 
booh  in  then-  hands.  Even  as  regards  composers  our  merits  are  at 
least  respectable.  Sterndale  Bennett,  the  chief  disciple  of  Men- 
delssfion,  G.  A.  Macfarren,  Arthur  Sullivan,  and  Henry  Smart  con- 
stitute" at  least  a  remarkable  group,  and  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  they 
have  each  of  them  belonged  to  the  Academy,  either  as  students  or 
professors,  or  successively  as  both.  Music  is  essentially  the  most 
cosmopolitan  of  all  the  arts  and  sciences;  and  nothing  can  be  more 
to  be  desired  for  English  music  than  that  traveling  scholarships 
should  be  instituted  in  the  national  musical  colleges,  the  successful 
candidates  for  which  should  thus  have  the  opportunity  of  studying 
the  philosophy  of  sound  in  every  part  of  the  world.     A  popular 


MODERN-  CULTURE    AND   LITERATURE.  519 

|  artist  of  the  day,  Mr.  Du  Maurier,  has  given  us  three  pregnant  illus- 
trations of  the  music  of  the  past,  the  present,  and  the  future.  The 
iirst  represents  a  lady,,  a  graceful  little  figure  in  Watteau  costume, 
performing  on  the  piano  a  melody  of  Mozart's.  She  is  surrounded 
by  a  group  of  intelligent  and  appreciative  hearers.  Old  and  you 
— from  the  delighted  grandfather  to  the  little  girl  who  stand  i  hv  I  1 
and  quiet  at  her  mother's  side — are  listening,  as  though  the  dr< 

of  the  gentle,  pure-hearted  composer  were  undersl I,  and  their 

elevating  influences  confessed  in  various  measures  by  all  presi 
Beneath  we  have  the  "Music  of  the  Present."  A  young  lady  is  per- 
forming with  much  execution  some  brilliant  "Morceau"  by  a  modern 
master,  while  groups  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  stand  or  si!  aboul  I 
piano,  conversing  among  themselves,  with  polite  indifference  to  the 
melody.  Then  we  have  the  "Music  of  the  Future "■ —portentous 
and  terrific.  A  band  of  frantic  wild-haired  musicians  are  executing 
some  piece  of  astounding  loudness,  while  the  auditors  rash  aw 
distractedly  covering  their  ears.  There  is  a  story  in  the  "Percy 
Anecdotes"  which  teUs  us  that  an  organ  sent  by  the  Emperor  of  the 
East,  Constantine  Cupronymus,  to  King  Pepin  of  France,  a.  d.  757, 
so  strongly  affected  a  lady  who  heard  it  for  the  first  time  that  she 
became  delirious  for  the  rest  of  her  days.  Possibly,  this  i  (rent  may 
be  considered  as  prefiguring  the  character  of  the  musicians  of  the 
future.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  artist  does  not,  in  the  first 
of  these  tableaux,  exaggerate  the  musical  attainments  of  our  ances- 
tresses: although  a  lady  once  performed  in  the  hearing. of  Dr.  John- 
son a  sonata,  the  extreme  difficulty  of  which  was  proudly  pointed 
out  by  her  mother,  only  to  provoke  the  characteristic,  "  Madam,  I 
wish  it  had  been  impossible!"  It  was  the  very  rare  exception  a 
hundred  years  ago  to  find  any  body  who  could  execute  more  than 
the  simplest  tunes  on  the  spinet  or  harpsichord. 

When  we  look  at  the  more  tumultuous  pictures  in  the  set  above 
mentioned,  we  may  perhaps  recognize  the  reflection  of  the  troubles 
and  perplexities  of  modern  life  in  the  music  of  the  period.  It  is 
probably  only  when  they  are  regarded  from  this  point  of  view  that 
the  extraordinarily  intricate  compositions  of  the  Abbe  Liszt  or  the 
prodigious  tone-pictures  of  Wagner  become  intelligible.  Bere,  too, 
may  be  discovered  a  reason  why  the  palm  of  musical  supremacy  is 

|  generally  accorded  to  the  school  of  Germany.  The  sofl  ami  almost 
languid  sentimentalism  of  Italian,  the  airy  and  sparkling  brilliance 
of  French  compos*  rs,  are  not  the  echoes  of  those  manifold  Bounds 
which  constitute  the  gamut  of  human  nature  in  the  same  way  as  the 
music  of  Germany.     There  may  be  an  infinity  of  charm  in   Italian 


520  ENGLAND. 

sweetness  and  in  French  variations,  but  for  those  harmonies  which 
are  the  symbols  in  sound  of  the  greatest  joys,  deepest  sorrows, 
highest  hopes,  most  painful  conflicts  of  human  nature,  we  must, 
probably,  go  to  Teutonic  minstrels.  If  proof  of  this  is  wanted,  it 
is  to  be  found  in  Wagner's  opera  of  Tannhauser,  and  in  Schumann; 
at  the  same  time,  the  influences  both  of  Schubert  and  Chopin  haye 
had  a  profound  effect  in  molding  the  musical  taste  of  the  day. 

We  pass  on  to  another,  and  as,  perhaps,  some  will  think  it  should 
be  rated,  the  first  element  in  the  popular  culture  of  the  day.  The 
machinery  for  the  teaching  of  science  is  eyen  more  highly  organized 
than  that  for  the  teaching  of  art;  nor  does  science  lack  the  popu- 
larity and  fashionable  prestige  which  art  conspicuously  commands. 
There  are  classes  for  scientific  instruction  in  all  our  great  schools, 
and,  independently  of  our  great  schools,  in  all  our  great  towns. 
The  universities  award  then  highest  distinctions  to  successful  can- 
didates in  the  examinations  of  which  natural  science  forms  the 
subject;  and  the  foremost  writers  upon  scientific  matters  are  cer- 
tainly the  most  popular  among  the  authors  of  the  day,  and  for  the 
same  reason  that  holds  good  of  the  artistic  writers — viz.,  because 
then  literary  style  is  alike  pleasing  and  perspicuous.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  British  Association  for  the  encouragement  of  science 
increases  every  year,  and  acts  as  a  kind  of  missionary  in  our  great 
provincial  towns.  Naturalists  and  field-clubs  are  popular  in  coun- 
try districts;  and  scientific  institutes,  with  valuable  scientific  libraries 
attached,  abound  in  our  great  centers  of  manufacturing  industry. 

In  a  very  great  degree  the  extent  to  which  physical  science  is 
now  cultivated  must  be  attributed  to  the  individual  influence  of 
two  distinguished  men.  Mr.  Huxley  and  Mr.  Tyndall  would  be 
eminent  as  writers,  even  if  they  were  not  masters  of  scientific  expo- 
sition. It  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  what  Mr.  Glad- 
stone has  done  for  finance  Mr.  Huxley  has  done  for  the  facts  of 
physical  science.  Upon  medical  training  as  well  as  upon  general 
education  and  culture  his  influence  has  been  equally  manifest.  The 
training  of  our  future  doctors  and  surgeons  should,  according  to 
Mr.  Huxley,  be  a  department  of  the  general  education  of  the  coun- 
try, and  should  merely  be  a  more  minute  and  perfect  elaboration 
of  that  scientific  discipline  which  should  be  imparted  in  all  national 
schools.  Chemistry,  botany,  and  physics  woidd  thus  be  subjects  as 
universally  recognized  in  our  educational  establishments  as  classics 
or  mathematics.  Those  students  who  elected  to  follow  a  medical 
career  would  pass  from  the  general  schools  to  some  one  or  other  of 
the  two  or  three  great  medical  institutions  with  which  Mr.  Huxley 


MODERN   CULTURE    AXD    LITERATURE.  521 

would  replace  the  multitude  of  smaller  ones  that  at  present  exist 
One  may  discover  in  the  scieutilie  writings  of  this  distingui  hi  I 
teacher  qualities  analogous  to  those  which  are  the  chief  not  i  of 
Mr.  Buskin  as  a  writer  on  art  As  Mr.  Elusion  admires  so  deeply 
the  exquisite  beauty  of  the  works  of  Nature  in  the  veg)  table  world, 
so  does  Mr.  Huxley  explain,  in  language  equally  appreciate 
happily  chosen,  and  enforce  by  arguments  strikingh  jtive  and 

cogent,  the  marvellous  thriit  and  wise  torn  which  characterizes  all 
creation.  There  can  be  no  better  example  of  his  power  of  inter- 
esting the  popular  attention  on  scientific  matters  than  his  essays 
and  addresses,  avowedly  having  for  their  subjects  yeast,  the  forma- 
tion of  coal,  the  physical  basis  of  life.  !u  each  of  these  we  have 
not  merely  the  investigator  and  the  philosopher,  but  the  man  of 
general  culture,  the  scholar,  and,  as  his  essays  on  Berk<  Ley  an  I 
Descartes  show,  the  interested  metaphysician.  Take  his  illustration 
of  the  nature  of  protoplasm  as  a  singularly  happy  piece  of  popi 
exposition.  He  draws  here  a  clever  analogy  bet  we  in  it  and  Balzac's 
story  of  the  "Peau  de  Chagrin."  "The  hero,"  he  continues,  "be- 
comes possessed  of  a  magical  wild  ass's  skin,  which  yields  him 
the  means  of  gratifying  all  his  wishes.  But  the  surface  repr  nts 
the  duration  of  the  proprietor's  life,  and  for  every  desire  sati  ified  the 
skin  shrinks  in  proportion  to  the  intensity  of  fruition,  until  at 
life,  or  the  last  handbreadth  of  the  peau  de  chagrin,  di  s  with 

the  gratification  of  a  last  wish."     According  to  Huxley,  this  was  I 
foreshadowing  of  a  physiological  truth:  "at  any  rate,  the  matt 
lire  is  a  veritable  peau  de  chagrin,  and  for  every  vital  act  it  is  some- 
what the  smaller.     All  work  implies  waste,  or  the  work  of  life  re- 
sults, directly  or  indirectly,  in  the  waste  of  protoplasm.''  ■  >il v 
for  mankind,  he  continues  to  explain,  the  waste  continually  going 
en  can  be  repaired  by  eating  beef  and  mutton.     "  Mutton  itself  was 
once  the  living  protoplasm,  more  or  less  modified,  of  another  ani- 
mal— sheep.     .     .     A  singular  inward  laboratory  which  I  pos« 
win  dissolve  a  certain  portion  of  the  modified  protoplasm;  Na- 
tion so  formed  will  pass  into  my  veins,  and  the  subtle  influences  to 
which  it  will  then  be  subjected  will  convert  t              i  protopla 
into  living  protoplasm,   or  transubstantiate   the   sheep  into  man." 
The  sheep,  in  turn,  has  received  its  protoplasm    from  the   \ 
table  world,  and  thus  the  matter  of  life  and  thought  is  built   up 
from  the  foundation  to  the  summit  of  the  common  mat 
universe. 

In  a  degree  perhaps  even  greater  than  Mr.  Huxley  Cyndall 

is  the  interpreter  or  popularizer  of  science.     "  Sound,"  "  Light,"  "  I 


522  ENGLAND. 

diation,"  are  the  titles  of  books  on  subjects  which,  a  few  years  ago. 
were  strictly  confined  to  scientific  circles.  Professor  Tyndall  has 
brought  these  topics,  and  an  enormous  amount  of  matter  necessary 
for  then  illustration,  from  the  laboratory,  as  the  fore-court  of  the 
Temple  of  Philosophy,  to  the  lecture-hall  of  the  Royal  Institution. 
Like  Mr.  Huxley,  Mr.  Tyndall's  work  has  been  directed  to  the  an- 
nihilation of  two  great  popular  delusions — the  first,  the  idea  that 
either  men  or  women  will  not  be  practically  the  happier  and  the 
better  for  the  acquisition  of  scientific  knowledge;  the  second,  that 
education  is  really  finished  when  school  is  left  behind,  and  is  not 
rather  a  process  to  be  coutinued  throughout  life.  Here,  then,  we 
may  discover  one  of  the  surest  antidotes  to  that  mischievous  ten- 
dency which  some  critics  have  discovered  in  modern  scientific 
teaching.  If  it  can  be  said  that  physical  science  has  given  man 
an  exaggerated  notion  of  his  power  over  nature,  it  has  also,  as 
taught  by  its  highest  authorities,  shown  him  how  infinite  is  his 
ignorance,  and  implanted  in  the  popular  mind  a  desire  to  gain  a 
greater  insight  into  the  operations  of  nature. 

Nor  is  it  only  on  intellectual  grounds  that  the  public  is  indebted 
to  the  services  which  scientific  teaching  has  accomplished.  Physical 
research  has  a  further  popular  attraction;  first,  because  it  is  per- 
ceived that  some  comprehension  of  it  is  necessary  for  healthy  living; 
secondly,  because  it  is  daily  more  and  more  recognized  how  truly 
philanthropic  are  its  services.  Probably,  no  man  now  living  has 
had  the  honor  of  saving  more  human  lives  than  Mr.  Lister,  Clinical 
Professor  at  King's  College,  London.  His  antiseptic  treatment — 
the  result  of  much  patient  inquiry  and  complicated  research — -has 
only  slowly  won  recognition  in  London,  though  it  has  long  since 
been  adopted  in  America,  and  alleviated  the  agonies  of  countless 
victims  in  the  course  of  recent  European  wars.  On  the  death  of  Sir 
"William  Ferguson,  the  Clinical  Chair  of  Surgery  at  King's  College 
was  offered  to  Mr.  Lister,  who,  feeling  that  here  a  signal  oppor- 
tunity had  presented  itself  for  the  fulfillment  of  his  beneficent  mis- 
sion, gave  up  a  lucrative  practice  and  a  distinguished  position  at 
Edinburgh.  In  coming  to  London  Mr.  Lister  may  be  said  to  have 
been  invading  the  enemy's  country.  He  had  not  been  in  the  capital 
a  year  before  he  may  also  be  said  to  have  conquered  it,  by  the  com- 
bination of  high  personal  qualities  with  eminent  scientific  attain- 
ments and  success. 

Again,  science  occupies  a  conspicuous  place  among  the  forces 
which  contribute  to  the  sum  of  modern  culture,  not  onlv  because  it 
deals  with  demonstrable  verities,  but  because  it  opens  a  vista  full 


MODERN   CULTURE   AND    LITERATURE. 

of  dazzling' fascinations  to  the  imagination.     In  this  department 
.   science  the  names  of  Sir  Wyville  Thompson  and  Dr.  Carpenter  are 
entitled  to  prominent  mention.     The  Challt  cpedition  was 

ganized  by  the  Government,  in  deference  to  the  repeated  and  em- 
phatic representations  of  Dr.  Carpenter,  for  the  purpose  of  Eathoming 
the  mysteries  of  the  waters  beneath  the  earth.  Thai  the  snbjed  <»t' 
deep-sea  exploration  should  have  a  vivid  attraction  for  the  popular 
mind  is  natural  in  itself,  and  is  signally  illustrated  by  the  eagei  □ 
with  which  the  public  have  nocked  to  hear  lectures  and  to  read 
books  on  the  subject.  We  begin  to  be  aware  that  we  are  end  a 
upon  the  triumph  predicted  by  Bacon  for  man  over  nature.  We 
had  already  measured  the  earth,  gauged  the  depth  of  its  crust,  as- 
certained the  date  of  its  genesis;  we  had  weigh<  d  the  sun,  and  con- 
structed maps  of  the  planets.  It  remained  to  sound  the  lowest 
depths  of  ocean,  and  to  provide  the  materials  for  a  picture  of  I 
economy  of  its  abysses.  Here  we  have  found  Nature  in  the  very 
midst  of  that  work  which  she  has  been  carrying  on  for  countless 
ages,  as  busy  now  as  when  first  she  undertook  the  development  of 
the  planet  we  inhabit  out  of  mist,  haze,  and  floating  nebulae. 

Mr.  Huxley  and  Mr.  Tyndall  have  both  of  them  a  distinguisl 
opponent  in  Mr.  St.  George  Mivart,  who,  though  a  firm  champion 
of  Roman  Catholicism,  would  admit  some  of  tl  linal  principles 

of  Mr.  Kuxlev  and  Mr.  Tvndall.     Thus  he  would  not  deny  that 
general  appearance  of  the  world  justifies  the  conclusion  that  all 
species  have  been  introduced  by  a  process  of  evolution.     He  would, 
however,  deny  that  evolution  and  the  mere  operation  of  secondary 
laws  are  enough  to  explain  those  phenomena  an  1  those  at! 
which  are  most  especially  distinctive  of  man.     Granted,  he  mi| 
possibly  allow,  that  you  can  account  for  the  formation  of  the 
body  in  the  same  way  as  you  may  account  for  tin  of  the 

bodies  of  other  animals,  how,  he  would  ask,  are  you  to  account 
the  growth  of  that  intelligence  which  specially  differentiates  man 
from  other  animals,  or  for  that  sense  of  justice  which,  in  however 
rudimentary  a  form,  is  implanted  in  the  rudesi  and  most  sa\ 
nations.     Apropos  of  this  latter  point,  Mr.  Mivart  cites  the  u 
of  a  ferocious  and  uncivilized  Australian  tribe,  one  of  whose  punish- 
ments is  the  thrusting  of  a  spear  into  the  thigh.     It',  for  certain 
offenses,  he  says,  the  weapon  is  embedd    I  too  <'.  eply  in  the  hiu 
flesh,  the  victim  of  the  1  protests.     What,  he  asks,  is  thi 

not  a  sense  of  justice,  showinj  in  how<  ver  primitive  a  form? 

When  Messrs.  Huxley  and  Tvndall  explain  human  intelligei 

those  sentiments  which  we  recognize  as  moral  by  the  simp] 


I 


\ 


524  ENGLAND. 

nient  that  they  have  been  evolved  by  the  ordinary  operation  of  sec- 
ondary laws,  actively  in  progress,  through  innumerable  successions 
of  generations,  Mr.  Mivart  would  observe  that  the  generations  of 
the  lower  creatures  have  been  infinitely  more  numerous,  not  only 
as  regards  the  rapidity  of  then*  sequence,  but  in  view  of  the  period 
from  which  they  date,  than  the  generations  of  men.  If,  therefore, 
the  mere  lapse  of  time  has  not  given  to  animals  and  insects,  emi- 
nently endowed  with  a  sort  of  intelligence,  precisely  that  variety  of 
intelligence  which  is  to  be  found  in  man,  how  is  the  phenomenon  to 
be  accounted  for  save  by  the  hypothesis  of  the  intervention  of  some 
superior  power — in  other  words,  of  the  Divine  action.  Mr.  Alfred 
Wallace,  himself  a  follower  of  Mr.  Darwin,  and  a  believer  in  evolu- 
tion, admits  the  existence  of  this  difficulty,  and  seems  disposed  to 
explain  it  by  the  assumed  operation  of  spirits. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  extraordinary  advance  and  develop- 
ment of  scientific  culture  should  influence  both  the  literature  and 
religion  of  the  day.  Physiology  and  psychology — the  latter  being, 
for  the  most  part,  resolved  into  the  former — control  or  powerfully 
tincture  the  imagination  of  at  least  one  of  the  leading  spirits  of  our 
modern  literature.  Scientific  terminology  is  introduced  to  indicate 
the  facts,  feelings,  and  phenomena  with  which  the  novelist  and  the 
poet  deal.  There  are  many  phrases  in  the  later  works  of  George 
Eliot  which  are  absolutely  unintelligible  to  the  reader  who  has  not 
been  also  in  some  degree  a  student  of  physical  or  mental  science. 
It  is,  indeed,  no  new  thing  that  the  scientific  conceptions  of  the 
period  should  be  mirrored  forth  in  contemporary  literature.  Homer, 
Dante,  and  Milton  all  adopt  and  illustrate  the  current  cosmogonies 
of  their  era.  In  the  "  Iliad  "  and  the  "  Odyssey "  there  is  the  same 
scheme  of  the  universe  shadowed  forth  as  in  the  primitive  charts 
of  the  geographer.  The  "Divine  Comedy"  has  well  been  described 
by  a  critic  of  our  day — Mr.  Edward  Dowden — as  a  harmony  of  phi- 
losophy, physics,  and  poetry;  while  in  "Paradise  Lost"  the  astro- 
nomical theories  were  not  more  fancifully  unsound  than  they  were 
elaborately  consistent.  Nor  in  the  present  age  is  the  motto  of  all 
our  poets  "art  for  art's  sake."  The  doctrine  of  human  progress 
penetrates  the  verse  of  Mr.  Tennyson,  and  what  has  been  called 
the  "cosmical  feeling  for  nature" — the  consciousness  that  in  the 
infinite  complexity  of  the  world  there  is  still  unity — is  not  more 
visible  in  Mr.  Carlyle  than  in  the  Laureate.  "When  Teufelsdrockh 
exclaims,  "Force,  force,  everywhere  force;  we  ourselves  a  mysteri- 
ous force  in  the  center  of  these  !  "  he  hints  at  the  same  truth  as  is 
embodied  in  the  lines  entitled  "  The  Higher  Pantheism." 


MODERN  CULTURE   AND    LITERATURE. 

"Flower  in  the  crannied  wall, 

I  pluck  you  out  of  the  orannii 
Hold  you  here,  root  and  all,  in  my  hand, 
Little  flower — but  if  I  could  understand 
"What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is." 

But  this  is  only  a  less  characteristic  illustration  of  the  influence  of 
science  upon  literature.  Literature  has  not  merely  be<  □  influenced 
by  science,  but  invaded  by  it;  and  when  a  critic,  able,  learned,  and 
•'  in  this  case  profoundly  sympathetic — Mr.  I\.  H.  Hutton — can  only 
explain  in  such  a  passage  as  I  he  following  the  i  m, 

it  is  clear  that  we  are  rapidly  replacing  the  old  school  of  literary 
by  a  new  school  of  scientific  critics: — 

"If  I  may  venture  to  interpret  so  great  a  writer's  thought,  I  Bhotdd  ray  that 
•The  Spanish  Gypsy'  is  written  to  illustrate,  not  merely  douBly  and  trebly,  but 
from  four  or  five  distinct  points  of  view,  how  the  inheritance  of  nit" 

streams  of  impulse  and  tradition  stored  up  in  what  we  call  r 
tragic  veto  upon  any  attempt  of  spontaneous  individual  lition  to 

ignore  or  defy  their  control,  and  to  emancipate  itself  from  the  tyranny  of  th<  ir 
disputable  and  apparently  cruel  rule.     You  can  see  the  i;>  I     nc  i  of  tl 
Darwinian  doctrines,  so  far  as  they  are  applicable  at  all  to  moral  cl 
and  causes,  in  almost  every  page  of  the  poem.     How  the  th  n-<litary 

capacity  and  hereditary  sentiment  control,  as  with  invisible  cords,  the  orbi 
even  the  most  powerful  characters;  how  the  fracture  of  those  C 
it  can  be  accomplished  by  mere  icill,  may  have  even  a  greater  effect  in  wrecking 
character  than  moral  degeneracy  would  itself  produce;  how  th"  man  who  fan 
and  uses  the  hereditary  forces  which  natural  descent  has  1  ion  him 

becomes  8  might  and  a  center  in  the  world,  while  the  man,  perhaps  intril     - 
cally  the  nobler,  who  dissipi  bos  '  ;s  strength  by  trying  I 
stream  of  his  past  is  noutra  ized  and  paralyzed  by  the  vain  eff  I     how 

a  divided  past,  a  past  not  r  one,  may  weaken  l      I  wer, 

instead  of  strengthening  it  •  command  of  a  larger  experience    all  this 

George  Eliot's  poeni  paints  with  a  tragical  force  that  answers  to  Ali 
definition  of  tragedy,  that  which  'purifies'  by  pity  and  by  fear."* 

The  points  of  contact  between  science  and  religion   arc  sufli- 
cienth  :uz"d  by  theological  teachers  of  our  time.     No  <  ■ 

man  in  England,  of  any  denomination,  would  venture  to  addri 
for  successive  weeks  a  con  ion  at  all  highly  educated  without 

keeping  himself  abreast  of  the  scientific  literature  <>'  the  '\-iy. 
is  to  be  noticed  thai  the  manner  in  which  science  is  o' •••.M  with  by 
theology,  ami  theology  by  sci. ■m-r,  is  no  Longer  vehal  i'  once  \ 
Science  was  used  by  Paley  to  overcome  tl  e  r  '  difficuH 

suggested  by  reason;  reason  is  now  used  to  show  that  religion 

•  "Essays"  by  It.  II.  Hutton,  pp.  348,  3i'J. 


526  ENGLAND. 

capable  of  scientific  treatment.  Nor  does  the  professional  teacher 
of  religion  altogether  deny  this;  for  the  most  part  he  admits  the 
probable  truth  of  many  scientific  hypotheses.  If  he  is  a  Roman 
Catholic  or  High  Anglican,  he  meets  the  declaration  of  the  irrecon- 
cilable feud  between  the  discoveries  of  geology  and  the  letter  of  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis  with  the  admission  that  it  may  be  as  the 
geologists  assert,  and  that  the  Church  has  not  spoken  authoritatively 
on  the  subject.  If  he  takes  his  stand  upon  the  basis  of  a  liberal 
latitudinarianism,  he  is  not  concerned  to  deny  the  Darwinian  theory 
of  evolution.  Religion,  he  holds,  begins  where  science  ends.  There 
is  a  term  which  science  is  impotent  to  pass.  Behind  the  law  of  na- 
ture must  be  the  Lawgiver;  beyond  the  phenomena  must  be  their 
great  First  Cause. 

Nor  is  the  attitude  assumed  by  science  towards  theology  hostile, 
in  the  sense  in  which  many  of  Faraday's  contemporaries,  most  unlike 
Faraday  himself,  were  the  enemies  of  revelation.  Modern  science 
speaks  with  condescension  of  "  our  noble  Bible,"  and  affably  pre- 
pares the  "  Prayer  Gauge  "  as  the  best  solution  of  a  vague  question. 
A  similar  rationalism,  though  manifested  in  a  somewhat  unattract- 
ive way,  is  perceptible  in  the  philosophical  analysis  of  human  senti- 
ments given  by  Professor  Bain,  who  considers  the  affection  of  a 

I  mother  for  her  child — which  Victor  Hugo,  in  the  happy  phrase  of 
genius,  has  spoken  of  as  "divinely  animal" — as  "purely  animal." 
The  late  Charles  Kingsley,  commenting  upon  the  opinion  of  Profes- 
sor Bain  not  long  before  his  death,  said:  "The  end  of  such  a  phi- 
losophy must  be  very  near."  It  has  been  finely  shown  by  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  of  contemporary  theologians  that  the  great 
crowning  fact  of  Christian  history  is  "  not  the  solution,  but  the  illu- 
mination of  the  mvsteries  of  life."  This  is  an  hvpothesis  at  least  as 
legitimate  in  its  way  as  many  of  the  hypotheses  of  science.  The 
truths  of  science  are  eternal;  scarcely  so  the  ascendency  over  the 
individual  of  a  science  which  is  apt  entirely  to  ignore  the  imagina- 
tive element  in  man.  Physicism,  in  its  present  shape,  can  scarcely 
hope  to  supplant  religion;  and  if  it  be  said  that  science  is  really 
more  of  a  creed  at  the  present  day  than  theology,  it  is  possible  that 
the  world  ma}'  swing  back  from  that  state  which  marks  nothing 
more  than  the  temporary  supremacy  of  Pessimism.  Pessimism,  as 
the  correlative  of  Optimism,  has  always  existed,  and  it  now  sounds 

■  audibly,  in  a  pathetic  minor,  through  much  of  our  literature,  phi- 
losophy, and  art.  If  it  really  be  the  case  that  natural  science  has  at 
the  present  day  taken  in  many  the  place  of  faith,  the  question  is  not 
so  much,  Will  the  new  reign  of  reason  be  permanent  ?  as,  For  what 


MODERN   CULTURE    AXD    LITERATURE.  527 

limited  period  will  it  List?    Whoever  f  e  of  the  future  may 

be,  will  his  garb  be  that  of  the  physical  inquirer?  It  inag  hi  that 
the  next  era  of  philosophical  investigation  will  l>e  one  in  which 
moral  laws  take  the  place  of  physical  laws  as  the  obj<  earch. 

The  physical  order  of  the  universe  we  have  now  almost  ascertain 
is  there  a  moral  law  which  will  submit  to  the  same  process  of  analy- 

aml  mquiry?    At  the  same  time,  the  prospect  of  such  an  ini 
tigation  involves  the  assumption  of  a  reaction  against  •  which 

may  be  thought  to  be  extremely  improl  The  importance  i  E 

evolution,  in  its  bearing  upon  morals,  is  thai  it  really  tends  to  d<  - 
prive  ethics  of  its  position  us  an  independent  science,  making  it  a 
mere  appendage  of  physics,  and  causing  it  to  stand  in  the  same  re- 
lation to  physics  as  does  political  economy  to  the  larger  Bcience  of 
sociology. 

This  analysis  of  the  social  and  intellectual  conglomeration  sp<  : 
of  as  modern  culture,  is  necessarily  most  imperfect.     That  the  chief 
elements  in  modern  culture  are  the  artistic  and  scientific  can  scarce- 
ly be  doubted.    But  when  once  these  are  subj<  ct  to  fresh  influent 
or  are  combined  in  changed  proportions,  the  result  is  what   is  prac- 
tically a  novel  substance.     The  new  facilities  of  Continental  tra     I 
have  coincided  with  the  interest  which  art  preachers  have  arot 
in  Continental  picture-galleries,  and  the  mind  thus  passes,  by  a  nat- 
ural transition,  from  the  contemplation  of  objects  to  the  events  which 
cluster  round  them.    Art  is  the  high  priestess  who  takes  the  average 
Englishman  or  Englishwoman  to  the  threshold  of  history,  and  the 
culture  with  which  history,  as  it  is  now  studied,  enriches  the  human 
intelligence,  is  being  more  largely  and  vividly  fell  every  day.    * 
Freeman,  Secley.  and  Green — the  only  the  nanus  of  a  few  of 

those  writers  who  have  taught  the  general  public  to  r<  gard  hist 
not  as  the  bare  narrative  of  occurrences,  or  as  a  confused  collection 
of  dates  and  names,  but  as  the  continuous  illustration  of  the  prac- 
tical working  of  moral  and  political  laws.     The  difference  bet* 
such  historians  as  these  and  those  of  an  earlier  age  c 
fact  that  at  the  present  day  sociology  is  recognized  sine 

science.  There  is  now  seen  to  be  a  unity  in  the  chronicles  of  all 
countries  and  all  ages.  The  annals  of  classical  Greece  and  Rome 
arc  only  a  «nt  of  the  universal  annals  of  mankind,  of  which  I 

history  of  Franc  or  '        nul.  Ital  y,  is  the  w  quel    The 

study  of  history  is  recogniz    i  at  involving  whatevi  r  is  chai 
of  the  exercise  of  the  human  intellect,  or  commemorative  of  i 
and  triumphs.     Nor  is  the  history  of  a  nation  only  to  be  found  in 
its  written  records.     It  is  recognized  as  embodied  in  its  art  tr 


528  ENGLAND. 

ures  and  stored  in  its  antiquarian  remains.     In  this  way  art  culture 
becomes  a  portion  of,  and  subsidiary  to,  historical  culture. 

The  same  process  has  been  applied  to  religion,  -which  has  afforded 
ground  for  the  exercise  of  the  combined  functions  of  art,  history,  and 
science.  It  is  not  only  by  the  services  of  an  esthetic  ritualism  that 
the  imaginative  faculty  is  gratified;  free  scope  is  given  to  it  in  many 
of  the  literary  products  of  ecclesiastical  rationalism — the  most  de- 
cided adversary  of  ritualism.  Such  works  as  "  Ecce  Homo "  and 
"  Philoehristus  "  are  steeped  in  a  sympathetically  glowing  imagina- 
tion on  every  page.  To  the  picturesque  description  designed  with 
an  eye  to  artistic  effect  must  be  added  the  critical  study  of  the  Bible: 
this  criticising  self  being  but  a  manifestation  of  the  general  spirit  of 
the  time.  Only  a  school  of  commentators,  steeped  to  their  finger- 
tips in  nineteenth-century  culture,  would  venture  to  lay  such  exclu- 
sive stress  upon  the  moral  side  of  Christ's  life  and  teaching,  and' 
would  abandon  not  only  the  miracles,  but  entire  episodes  in  the 
sacred  narrative  of  the  New  Testament.  Only  apt  followers  of  such 
a  master  as  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  the  great  professor  of  nineteenth- 
century  culture,  would  consider  themselves  competent  to  decide 
what  passages  are  genuine,  what  are  the  immoral  perversions  of 
ignorant  disciples,  and  what  is  the  point  at  which  it  becomes  de- 
sirable or  necessary  to  turn  from  the  Calvinism  of  St.  Paul  to  the 
milder  Christianity  of  an  earlier  age.  It  would  be  equally  difficult 
to  overestimate  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold's  influence  either  upon  the  re- 
ligious or  esthetic  thought  of  the  day,  and  with  these  must  be 
classed  Mr.  Max  Muller's  "  Science  of  Religion,"  and  other  religious 
writings.  As  for  the  net  result  of  both,  is  it  not  to  evaporate  relig- 
ion itself  into  mere  morality  on  the  one  hand,  or  into  history  on 
the  other? 

n. 

Displays  of  literary  activity  abounding  on  every  side  and  in  every 
department  of  knowledge,  it  may  be  considered  a  paradox  to  say 
that  this  is  not  a  literary  age.  The  remark,  however,  is  strictly  true. 
Never  was  there  more  writing;  never  did  the  literary  spirit  occupy  a 
more  subordinate  place.  Literature  is  didactic,  theological,  esthetic, 
scientific,  any  thing  but  purely  literary.  To  read  for  reading's  sake 
is  unintelligible  to  the  mass  of  the  educated  public.  There  is  much 
to  be  said  in  favor  of  the  various  contemporary  manuals  and  biog- 
raphies, of  famous  authors,  ancient  and  modern,  English  and  for- 
eign, with  specimens  of  their  writings  and  analyses  of  then  more 
important  works.     But  they  furnish  a  striking  commentary  on  the 


MODERN   CULTURE    AND    LITERATI' RE.  529 

truth  of  the  proposition  advanced.     Twenty  pages  of  tl  I    or 

the  historian  studied  in  the  i  \  might  give  the  student  a  bet- 

ter insight  into  the  spirit  of  an  author,  whether  in  prose  or  \' 
than  two  hundred  pages  of  brightly  written  summary.     Bui   the 
facts  arc  what  is  wanted.     We,  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  have  in  some  things  a  passion  for  compl  I         \  and  d 
tinctness.     We  like  outlines  sharp  and  clear.     We  prefers  decoc- 
tion of  a  deathless  hard  in  a  pocket  volume  to  periodical  dipp 
into  works  that  occupy  half  a  dozen  shelves  id  our  libraries. 

Of  the  prevailing  tendency  on  the  part  of  literature  to  m<  i 
itself  in  something  which  is  not  literature  (here  could  be  no  better 
illustration  than  the  distinguished  man  of  whom  in  thf  former  sec- 
tion of  this,  as  well  as  in  a  preceding  chapter,  mention  has  more 
than  once  been  made.     Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  is  master  of  a  Btyle  "t 

I  supreme  delicacy  and  subtlety,  has  enlarged  the  conceptions  i 
as  illustrated  the  true  uses  of  literary  criticism;  a  writer  whos  i  gen- 
ius is,  if  ever  any  genius  was.  literarj  above  all  things.  But  although 
both  his  religious  and  his  political  position  are  exclusively  denned 
by  his  literary  spirit,  he  breaks  into  the  fields  of  politics  and  religion, 
In  other  words,  though  his  tests  and  standards  are  nothing  but 
literary,  he  insists  on  applying  them  to  matters  which  are  not  liter- 
ary. Possessing  a  critical  sense  of  exquisite  fineness  he  v<  ctures  to 
test  by  its  application  the  limits  of  the  inspiration  of  Scripture,  and 
to  decide  by  its  voice  what  elements  of  a  national  Church  organiza- 
tion are  to  be  assimilated  by  modern  culture  and  what  refused. 
While  Mr.  Arnold  may  be  spoken  of  as  the  founder  of  the  school 

i  of  esthetic  literature,  his  followers  have  contributed  to  it  much  which 
is  distinctively  their  own.  Literary  finish  Beldom  reaches  a  finer 
point  than  in  the  writings  of  Mr.  W.  H.  Pater  and  Mr.  J.  A.  S\  mot 
Both  may  have  some  artificialities  as  well  as  rare  excellencies 
style,  but  both  have  written  books  of  solid  learning  and  research, 
Mr.  Symonds5  "History  of  the  Renaissance"  is  the  product  of  Btudy 
and  scholarship.  Mr.  Pater's  essays  on  the  same  subject  have  a 
value  which  all  impartial  critics  admit  In  each  case,  however,  it  is 
rather  art  than  literature  which  gains.     Mr.  Shairp,   Pr  ■  of 

\  Poetry  at  Oxford,  is  a  critic  of  a  very  different  order.  Be,  at  least, 
has  nothing  in  common  with  the  Bchool  of  artistic  hedonism.  But 
he  is  as  little  content  as  they  are  with  being  a  critic  of  literature, 
pure  and  Be  discovers  in  all  that  he  analyzes  elem<  ate 

■which  do  not  meet  the  common  eye.     ( )ne  poet  is  \\  it  1 1  liim  the  or 
of  an  ethical  system;   another,  of  a  complex  scheme  of  the    in  J  <  rpre- 
tation  of  nature. 
34 


! 


530  ENGLAND. 

The  same  truth  holds  almost  equally  good  in  the  case  of  the 
poetry  of  the  day.  Frequently,  indeed,  its  inspiration  is  derived 
from  distinctly  literary  sources:  from  Homer,  as  in  the  case  of  so 
much  which  Mr.  Tennyson  has  written;  from  the  Greek  tragic  poets, 
or  the  French  and  Italian  of  the  sixteenth  century,  as  in  the  case 
of  Mr.  Swinburne.  But  there  is  a  disposition  to  regard  the  poetry 
which  has  not  a  mission  of  its  own  as  of  small  account.  It  is  not 
enough  that  a  writer  should  be  a  poet,  pure  and  simple.  There  is 
no  writer  living  who  stands  in  quite  the  same  relation  to  his  age  as 
Byron.  The  poet  of  the  period  is  either  the  musical  oracle  of  pagan- 
ism and  the  Revolution;  or  he  attempts  to  escape  into  the  life  of  an 
old  world,  throwing  only  a  few  accidental  side-lights  on  that  of  the 
modern;  or  he  takes  a  speculative  interest  in  what  men  think  and 
feel,  and  do  and  believe ;  or  he  is  a  philosopher  in  verse,  a  patholo- 
gist in  meter,  like  Mr.  Browning.  Has  poetry  a  message  for  a  hard- 
toiling,  anxious  generation  ?  What  is  that  message  ?  Is  it  to  be 
announced  in  language  inspired  b}^  the  past,  or  the  present?  Is 
there  any  gospel  which  the  race  of  bards  may  proclaim  to  mankind '? 
These  are  not  questions  which  have  as  yet  been  answered,  or  on 
which,  if  the  effort  to  answer  them  has  been  made,  any  unanimity 
can  be  said  to  exist.  The  whole  poetic  atmosphere  seems  to  echo 
with  the  din  of  controversy,  sometimes  loud  and  sometimes  faint. 
But  noise  is  always  there;  the  issue  always  undecided.  Our  mod- 
ern bards  are  divided  into  factions,  and  each  fresh  product  of  their 
muses  might  be  described  as  a  pamphlet  in  verse.  An  outburst  of 
magnificently  melodious  defiance,  proclaiming  that  men  and  gods  are 
equally  naught,  elicits  its  response  in  the  ajDotheosis  of  the  shadowy 
and  intangible,  and  a  writer  like  Mr.  Philip  Bourke  Marston  pours 
forth  a  protest  against  Mr.  Swinburne. 

Mr.  Browning,  who  has  written  some  of  the  finest  and  most  stir- 
ring lyrics  in  the  century,  seems  to  have  decided  that  poetry  should 
be  the  instrument  for  the  dissection  and  analysis  of  the  complex 
phenomena  of  life.  No  modern  writer  has  a  stronger  grasp  of  the 
great  problems  of  modern  existence,  or  is  less  readily  intelligible  to 
the  masses.  Mr.  Tennyson  induces  reverie;  Mr.  Browning  stimu- 
lates study;  the  one  charms;  the  other  stretches  on  the  rack.  The 
poetry  of  the  former  is  as  a  melodiously  whispering  zephyr;  the 
poetry  of  the  latter  as  a  searching  blast  from  the  north-east.  The 
poems  of  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  occupy  a  distinct  place  of  their  own. 
They  are  the  distilled  and  luminous  essence  of  metrical  thought, 
exquisite  in  idea,  and  masterpieces  of  expression.  There  remains 
a  host  of  writers  of  whom  many  have  attained  a  high  standard  of 


MODERN   CULTURE   AND    LITERATURE. 

excellence.     We  have  had  few  more  melodious  singers  than  the  late 
Mortimer  Collins,  a  kind  of  Rochester  born  oui  of  his  due  time.     If 

inusic  allied  to  power  is  wanted,  il  will  be  found  in  the  compositio 
of  Robert  Buchanan.  The  historical  dramas  of  the  lady  who  wril 
under  the  name  of  Ross  Neil  have  not  only  melody,  bul  grace  a 
power,  while  Aubrey  de  Vere  shows  in  the  same  class  of  compo 

tions  the  same  qualities. 

Mr.  Alfred  Austin  is  a  poet  of  a  different  order.  Beginning  a 
satirist,  and  producing  in  "The  Season"  a  composition  which  has 
the  true  classical  ring,  he  has  gradually  abandoned  that  department 
of  literature,  and  has  written  a  series  of  works,  the  most  important 
of  which  have  been  collected  in  one  volume,  under  the  title  of  the 
"  Human  Tragedy."  Much  that  is  memorable  in  the  hi  ttory  of  con- 
temporary Europe,  in  its  state  of  feeling,  and  in  the  ideas  and  con- 
troversies of  the  age,  civil  and  religious,  is  reviewed  in  its  i 
and  so,  while  the  poem  is  thus  eminently  I  caL  it  contains  a 

message  as  well,  whose  first  key-note  is  struck  in  the  opening  canto. 

"Yet  not  of  Love  alone,  its  advent  blind, 
Swift  raptures  and  slow  penalties,  I  sing. 
I  must  be  lifted  on  a  fiercer  wind, 

And  from  the  lyre  a  louder  anthem  wring; 
Still  as  Religion,  Country,  or  Mankind 

Bids  my  weak  head  sound  more  sonorous  string. 
Ah,  fatal  four!  which  by  the  dark  decree 
Of  Heaven  evolve  the  Human  Tragedy ! " 

In  the  first  canto,  or,  as  Mr.  Austin  prefers  t<>  call  it.  act,  is 
traced  the  development  of  love.  In  the  second,  the  contest  betwe<  Q 
love  and  religion.  In  the  thud,  the  conception  of  country  is  added, 
and  the  combined  operation  of  each  passion  is  illustrated  in  the 
events  of  Italian  history  during  the  late  autumn  of  1867.  In  the 
fourth  act  a  new  element  in  the  complication  is  added  by  the 
pearance  of  "mankind"  upon  the  stage,  and  the  conflict  is  explained 
in  these  stanzas: — 

"See  then,  my  child,  the  tragedy,  and 

What  feedB  it.     Love,  Religion,  Country,  all 

That  deepest,  dearest,  most  enduring  be, 
That  i:  -  noble,  and  that  holds  as  thrall, 

Once  g  beasts  were  no  more  gross  than  we — 

'Tis  these  for  which  the  victims  fastest  (all; 

Man's  self,  in  days  that  are  as  days  that  v. 

Suppliant  alike  and  execution.!  ! 


532  ENGLAND. 

"Now  once  again  this  tragedy,  this  jar 

Of  conscience  against  conscience,  hath,  rueseenis, 

In  Paris  struck  the  flinty  flame  of  war; 

Likely,  they  slay  for  straws,  they  die  for  dreams, 

But  things  that  seem  must  still  be  things  that  are, 
To  half-experienced  man,  who  perforce  deems 

He  doth  not  dream,  but  know  not,  nor  can  know, 

Till  death  brings  sleep  or  waking,  is  it  so." 

Such  is  the  Human  Tragedy  according  to  Mr.  Austin,  its  factors 
being  love,  religion,  country,  and  mankind.  The  opposing  forces 
between  whom  the  struggle  is  are  innate  in  humanity;  how  are  they 
to  he  reconciled?  The  answer  is,  by  the  agency  of  love;  and  so  the 
first  line  of  Mr.  Austin's  poem,  "  Oh,  Love,  undying  Love,  eternal 
star,"  is  also  the  last. 

Of  all  the  works  that  are  read  widely,  the  most  widely  read  are 
novels.  They  form  nearly  the  sole  literary  nourishment  of  a  large 
class  of  the  population.  They  have  much  of  the  influence  which  in 
other  countries  belongs  to  the  stage.  They  regulate  the  views  of 
life  of  hundreds  and  thousands  of  women,  especially  in  the  lower 
middle  section  of  society,  old  and  young.  The  mothers  and  daugh- 
ters of  the  English  aristocracy  out  of  the  London  season  may  read 
as  many  novels  as  the  daughter  or  wife  of  the  small  tradesman. 
But  in  the  latter  cas,e  there  is  none  of  the  opportunity  possible  in 
the  former  of  correcting  the  mawkish  and  mistaken  impressions  of 
existence  conveyed  by  the  class  of  writings  which  these  young  women 
devour.  They  are  as  much  possessed  with  the  ideas  introduced  to 
their  minds  as  a  child  in  a  nursery  is  by  the  images  and  incidents 
of  a  fairy  tale.  They  grow  to  believe  that  life  around  them  is  full 
of  those  glittering  possibilities  which  may  elevate  them  to  the  same 
social  levels  as  romance  heroines.  For  them  the  dramatis  persons 
of  their  favorite  author  have  their  antitypes  and  originals  in  the 
world  of  flesh  and  blood.  Cophetua  may  descend  to  them  in  robe 
and  crown  at  any  moment.  They  go  to  the  dress-circle  at  the  play 
with  the  word  "kismet"  trembling  on  their  lips,  and  they  are  anx- 
iously expecting  to  see  their  "fate"  at  a  half-crown  concert. 

But  while  many  novels  are  merely  foolish  stories,  introducing 
the  reader  to  a  world  which  is  not  that  of  real  life,  and  void  of  any 
attempt  to  grapple  with  life's  serious  problems,  there  is  a  steady 
increase  in  the  number  of  those  which  have  a  sensible  and  whole- 
some relation  to  actual  existence,  and  which  have  both  an  his- 
torical and  educational  value.  Mr.  Anthony  Trollope's  fictions  are 
photographs  of  nineteenth-century  life  in  pen  and  ink.  They  have 
for  contemporary  readers  just  the  same  kind  of  interest  as  the  do- 


MODERX   CULTUR* 

mestic  comedies  of  the  late  Mr.  Robertson,  or  those  collections  of 
cartes  de  visite  which  used  to  be  round  in  draw  ims  more  fre- 

quently than  now.     They  do  aoi   represenl  •!  force  in  hi. 

ture — though  Mr.  Trollope  may  have  man}  imitators     hi      G 
I   Eliot,  but  they  give  hundreds  and  thousands  of  men  and  won 
of  all  ages  and  of  all  ranks,  exactly  what   (hey  want     lighl 
reading,  that  requires  no  special  thought,  that  is  at  on  |  are 

recreation,  and  that  presents  to  them,  as  if  reflected  in  a  mirror,  I 
society  amidst  which  they  live.     Mr.  Edmund  Y.n  h   be  is 

no  longer  an  active  novelist,  recognizes  more  of  the  Beanrj 
life  than  Mr.  Trollope,  and  introduces  us  into  an  atmosphere  laden 
with  different  issues  and  associations,  but  his  men  and  worn 
living-  realities,  not  abstractions.     The  incid  and  thi  ides 

are  taken  from  life;  the  dialogue  is  that  which  may  l>e  heard  every 
day;  the  moral,  if  moral  is  to  be  extra,  ted  from  his  writin    a   may 
not  be  welcome,  hut  the  data  on  which  it  is  based  are  those  col- 
lected from  experience  by  a  singularly  acute  mind  equipped  v 
a  large  store  of  imagination,  fancy,  and  humor.      Mr.  Charles  R 
may  probably  be  spoken  of  with  correctness  as  ti  I  living 

master  of  English  realistic  romance.     Some  there  may  be  who  will 
contend  that  the  honors  of  this  distinction  should  be  divided  be- 
tween him  and  Mr.  WilMe  Collins.     As  creators  and  developei 
a  plot,  both  may  advance  the  same  claim  to  consummate  mastery. 
But  there  is  this  difference  between  the  two:   Mr.  Will  llins 

always  introduces  an  element  which,  it'  it  is  a  nat- 

ural, is  suggestive  of  the  supernatural — of  coincid 
and  weird  that  the  enumeration  of  them  gives  us  a  sentimi  ui  of 
uncanniness — 

"The  air  is  full  of  omens.     Bearce  had  I  set 
My  foot  outside  tl  i  I  met 

A  dog.    He  barked;  mil  well  tliat  bark  I  kn< 
I  met  anotlier,  and,  lo !  be  barked  too." 

The  idea  contained  in  these  lines  is  one  of  which  it    is  imp 
not  to  be  reminded  by  Mr.  Wilki<    ('ollins'  writings,  and  there  is 
nothing  of  the  Bame  sort  to  be  found  in  those  of  Mr.  i;.     ;.       \|--. 
Reade's  novels  are,  in  Fact,]  ■•  all  things  with  a  purp 

and  what  »nal  incident  thi  y  may  ! 

int  much  to  point  the  a 

■ee   or  four  other   D 
chiefly  strive  to  do  for  the  day  that  which  Dick  ray 

did.     Colonel   Lockhart,    Mr.   .!  "     a,    Mr.  i.    Mr. 


534  ENGLAND. 

George  Meredith,  master  of  a  terse  and  pregnant  style,  Mr.  Justin 
McCarthy,  Mr.  Besant,  and  Mr.  Rice — each  of  them  writes  not  only 
with  skill  and  humor,  but  with  much  knowledge  of  the  world  in 
which  they  live.  They  all  of  them  paint  contemporary  men  and 
women,  and  all  have  then-  value  for  the  historians  of  the  future. 

There  is  the  same  desire  to  treat  with  fidelity  and  with  fullness 
the  questions  of  the  day,  to  illustrate  the  characters  and  the  com- 
plications which  the  events  of  the  time  are  calculated  to  develop,  in 
Mrs.  Oliphant,  in  Mrs.  Lynn  Linton,  Mrs.  Cashel  Hoey,  Mrs.  Alex- 
ander, Mrs.  Edwards,  and  many  others.  Cleverness  and  ingenuity 
are  the  characteristics  of  the  works  of  all  these  writers,  though  the 
three  first  named  are  those  who  recognize  more  fully  the  gravity  of 
the  daily  issues  of  our  life,  the  perpetual  conflict  of  duties,  the 
deeper  motives  of  ordinary  action,  the  ulterior  tendencies  of  much 
that  is  petty  and  trivial,  the  irony  which  besets  existence.  In 
two  of  these  authors,  Mrs.  Linton  and  Mrs.  Hoey,  it  is  impossible 
not  to  recognize  the  influence  of  the  most  powerful  of  modern  novel- 
ists. Both  of  them  resemble  George  Eliot  in  their  habit  of  weigh- 
ing the  relative  morality  of  motives  and  acts,  of  showing  how  terri- 
bly complicated  is  the  chemistry  of  life,  and  in  their  appreciation  of 
the  perpetually  conflicting  issues.  As  regards  style  and  manner, 
treatment  and  phraseology,  George  Eliot  has  had  an  incomparably 
wider  influence  than  any  author  living.  This  is  partly,  of  course, 
because  of  the  contagious  power  which  genius  ever  carries  with  it, 
but  partly  also  because  she  represents  in  her  own  writings  so  many 
of  the  tendencies  of  the  times;  because  she  is,  as  so  many  of  our 
poets  are,  almost  morbidly  introspective,  analytical  Rightly  under- 
stood, George  Eliot's  novels  are  a  complete  system  of  moral  philos- 
ophy. The  position  taken  by  the  author  is  that  life  is  a  tremendous 
series  of  human  consequences;  that  the  results  of  acts  committed 
lightly  or  thoughtlessly  are  infinitely  far-reaching,  involving  the 
happiness  not  only  of  the  agents  themselves,  but  of  countless  others; 
and  that  each  individual  is  thus  under  an  appalling  responsibility 
both  to  his  fellows  who  are  alive  and  to  the  posterity  as  yet  un- 
born. This  great  writer,  taking  a  view  which  is  peculiarly  her  own 
of  the  relations  of  human  life,  not  unnaturally  expresses  that  view 
in  strange  and  unfamiliar  language.  But  in  the  terms  thus  em- 
ployed there  is  no  real  pedantry.  George  Eliot  writes  as  the  high 
priestess  of  a  special  school  of  philosophical  thought,  and  it  is  nec- 
(  isary,  to  convey  her  precise  shades  of  meaning,  that  she  should 
adopt  words  of  technical  sound. 

Of  novelists  such  as  "Ouida,"  Miss  Braddon,  and  Miss  Rhoda 


MODERN   CULTURE    AND    LITERATURE. 

Broughton,  there  is  El  to  bi  of 

these  began  with  placing  in  the  Betting  of  a  femh 
the  materials  of  pictures  drawn  bj   George  Lawrence  and  ' 
Melville.     She  has  since  then  come  powerfully  under  th< 
thai  pagan  estheticism  which  has  an  important  element  in  modi  rn 
culture,  and  to  this  she  has  added  that  experience  sign  coun- 

tries and  extended  travel  which  is  seen  in  manj  other  of  the  nov<  1- 
ists  of  the  period.     Miss  Braddon's  popularity  with  the  mid 
cl  not  seem  to  wane:      She  is  an  excellent  writer  of  cl 

idiomatic  English,  and  she  has  of  recent  rears  shown  that  she  can 
produce  an  interesting  story  without  having  recourse  to  the  sensa- 
tional machinery  which  was  supposed  to  be  essential  t<>  her  suci 

3S  Rhoda  Broughton  is  the  leading  rein-  ss  mtative  of  the  Bchool  of 
literary  piquancy.  She  has  brought  freshness  and  ingenuity  into 
the  well-worn  ways  of  domestic  fiction.  She  has  followers  and  imi- 
tators, but  she  has  few,  it'  any,  rivals.  Miss  Broughton  may  cot  be 
a  force  of  the  highest  kind,  but  a  force,  for  all  that,  in  modern  lit- 
erature she  distinctly  is. 

What  has  been  witnessed  in  other  walks  of  literature  may  also 
be  seen  in  the  fictions  of  the  day.  There  have  recently  been  pro- 
duced several  novels  in  which  musical  culture  is  the  prominent  ele- 

\  ment  of  interest,  the  chapters  being  headed  with  bars  of  nmsie. 
Here,  too,  there  may  probably  be  traced  the  influence  of  Ge  >rge 
Eliot,  whose  genius  in  her  earliest  novels  was  as  distinctly  towards 
music  as  latterly  it  has  been  towards  the  philosophy  of  positivism. 
With  her,  in  this  matter,  should  be  a  bed  the  name  of  (  I 

Macdonald,  whose  novel,  "Robert  Falconer."  was  largely  dev< 
subtle  <pn- lions  of  melody.     But  George  Macdonald  is  only  a  nov- 
elist incidentally,  and  he  is  really  a  moral  and  religious  homil 
who  popularizes  his  sermons  by  giving  them  the  form  of  lift; 
Mr.  Lawrence  Oliphant  cannot  be  called  a  theological  writer,  but  in 
his  ''Piccadilly,''  which  has  had   an   immense  influence  upon  the 
writing  of  the  day,  he  has  probed  very  deeply  some  of  the   grei  I 
of  modern  problems.     There  are,  however,  many  uovels,  and  s<>m,- 
of  those  the  best  and   most    popular  of  our  time,  which  may  be  re- 
garded  as  protests   against  the   restless,  feverish,  perplex*  1   and 
mquiring  spirit  which  animates  much  of  the  modern  fiction.     The 
V pleasant   sketchy  romances  of   Mr.    Hamilton   Aide*,   .Mr.    Waif 
Mr.  Julian  Sturgis,  and  others,  afford  not  only  a  relief,  but  a  remon- 

l    strance  to  that  delirious  unrest  of  which  Kingsley's  "  Y<  !-t  "  maj  be 
taken  as  a  type.     Ascending  higher  in  the  scale  of  lit.  rarj  •    • 
lence,  we  have,  as  distinguished  ornaments  of  what  may  1"  I 


536  ENGLAND. 

the  idyllic  school,  amongst  ladies,  Miss  Thackeray  the  authoress  of 
"Vera,"  and  others;  amongst  gentlemen  Mr.  Hardy,  Mr.  Black- 
more,  and  Mr.  Black.  A  variation  of  the  same  impulse  which 
causes  Mr.  Morris  to  invite  his  readers  to  accompany  him  in  his 
quest  after  an  earthly  paradise,  induces  these  authors  to  dwell  with 
lingering  love  and  profuse  labor  upon  those  aspects  of  life  which 
are  in  danger  of  being  forgotten  in  this  sophisticated,  urban,  and 
smoke-begrimed  epoch.  They  speak  to  us  out  of  the  fullness  of 
their  hearts,  and  Mr.  Blackmore  shows  us  his  dramatis  persome 
amid  the  cherry  orchards  of  Kent  or  on  the  open  downs  of  Sussex, 
as  Mr.  Black  takes  lis  to  the  Hebrides  or  the  Land's  End — from  an 
instinctive  affection  for  those  regions  and  a  happy  consciousness  that 
their  abilities  will  find  here  the  most  congenial  scope.  The  tendency 
of  some  of  the  writers  of  this  school  is  perhaps  towards  a  rather 
too  nebulous  picturesqueness.  Colors  are  blended  hazily  together. 
The  clear  hard  outline  is  lost.  The  senses  begin  to  grow  drowsy 
under  the  influence  of  excessive  sweetness,  and  the  effect  is  that  of 
literary  lotus-eating.  Mr.  Blackmore's  fiction,  in  addition  to  its 
artistic  elegance  and  beauty,  is  always  thrilling,  is  generally  found- 
ed on  fact,  is  written  in  a  nervous,  vigorous  style,  is  marked  by  a 
vivid  fancy  and  a  strong  sense  of  humor.  Mr.  Black's  novels  are  in- 
variably graceful,  and  abound  in  charming  description  of  sea  and 
shore,  rocky  coast,  green  islands.  Mr.  Hardy,  equally  original  as 
a  writer  and  thinker,  displays  the  same  disposition  as  Mr.  Black  to 
repeat  himself,  and  is  apt  to  carry  the  idiosyncrasies  of  his  style  to 
the  point  of  mannerism.  As  a  sketcher  of  certain  aspects  of  En- 
glish rural  life,  and,  above  all,  of  English  peasants,  he  is  in  his  way 
unique.  Like  Mr.  Black,  Mr.  Blackmore,  and  Miss  Thackeray,  Mr. 
Hardy  is  fond  of  heightening  the  effect  of  his  idyllic  and  pastoral 
.  scenes  by  investing  them  with  a  certain  mysticism,  and  the  accents 
■of  irresistible  doom,  more  or  less  disguised,  seem  audible  in  the 
:  murmur  of  every  passing  breeze. 

It  is  to  be  expected  that  an  age  of  which  the  literary  taste  is 
pre-eminently  for  the  literature  of  positive  information  and  instruct- 
ive fact  should  be  favorable  to  the  production  of  volumes  of  travel 
and  biography.  These,  indeed,  issue  from  the  press  in  an  incessant 
stream.  Their  subject-matter  is  found  in  all  lands  and  in  all  pe- 
riods. Every  country  in  which  the  English  language  is  spoken,  or 
in  which  it  is  deemed  desirable  by  an  ardent  patriotism  that  the 
English  flag  should  float,  finds  its  immediate  and  assiduous  chron- 
icler, and  in  the  footsteps  of  the  imperial  pioneer  there  inevitably 
follows  the  literary  memorialist.     Our  Australasian  colonies,  every 


1 


{ 


MODERN    CULTURE    AXD    LITERATURE. 

part  of  our  Indian  dependency,  every  asped  of  Indian  life  South 
Africa,  Central  Asia,  have  all  of  them  yielded  m  iteri  lis  for  a  library 
of  their  own.     The  biographer  lias  nol  lagged  behind     ] 
popular  book  of  the  time,  lesa  than  ten  years  ago,  was  Mr.  I! 
"Memorials  of  a  Quiet  Life."    In  his  work  on  Macaulay,  Mr.  C  0. 
Trevelyan  not  only  showed  that  he  had  powers  which,  if  appl     I 
exclusively  to  letters,  would  win  for  him  a  conspicuous  place  am 
nineteenth-century  writers,  but  achieved  a  popular  success  nol  un- 
worthy of  the  triumph  which  waited  on  Hi,-  historical  achie^   □ 
of  his  illustrious  uncle;   while  in  his  "Life  of  L  "  A.ir.   Sims 

produced  as  enduring  a  monument  as   may  be  witnessed   in  (ho 
-  Voltaire  "  or  "  Diderot "  of  Mr.  John  Morley. 

The  literature  of  modern  theology  and  history  is  even  more 
prolific.  Of  the  former  we  have  spoken  elsewhere,  yei  th  sre  rem  tin 
one  or  two  names  which  should  not  be  omitted,  and  on  which 
further  stress  should  be  laid.  One  of  the  greatest  masters  of  En- 
glish style,  as  he  indisputably  is  also  of  English  dialectic,  whom  the 
age  has  produced  is  in  the  first  place  a  theological  writer.  John 
Henrv  Newman  is  a  master  of  the  English  language  in  the  same 
sense  that  a  perfect  musician  may  be  called  the  master  of  liis  in- 
strument. There  is  no  note  in  its  varied  scale  which  lie  cannot 
produce  from  it.     He   has  conveyed,  perhaps,  a  fuller  id  its 

capabilities  than  any  writer  in  our  tongue,  has  shown  more  com- 
pletely how  it  may  lie  made  to  yield  alternate  sounds  of  i 
and  pathos,  of  invective  and  persuasion,  of  irony  and  earnestness. 
The  religious  sentiment  is  illustrated  in  all  its  manifold  in 

the  "University  Sermons";  the  clearest  rati  fcive  ;•  '  h   ws 

itself  in  the  "Grammar  of  Assent";  as  an  historian,  he  has  given  us 
one  of  the  best  pictures  of  Ancient  Athens  ever  drawn;  as  a  p 
in  addition  to  the  "Dream  of  Gerouiius,"  such  lyrics  as  "  Lead, 
kindly  Light."     The  popularity  of  Canon  Farrar,  the  author"!' 
"Life  of  Christ"  and  the  "Life  of  St.  Paul,"  grows  daily,  and  the 
circle  of  the  humanizing  influence  of  these  works,  ami  many  ot 
works    of   the    same    order,   perpetually   spreads.     Dean    Stan] 
whether        divine  or  hi  :.  pr<  tch< 

readers  as  Carlyle.     Thau  the  name  of  i!  e  accomplisl  •  1  Dean  of 
Westminst    r  there  could  be  no  b<  tter  com  link  between  tl 

\  ology  and  Froude,   Kin-lake.  Lecky,   I* 

these   in   their   different    departments    ■■>■■    i    ch    of    : 
who  would  be  ornaments  t<>  the  hi  I  literature  of  any  con- 

tury.     Elaborate    studies   of   special    periods,   comprehensive   sur- 
veys, pictures  which  bring  the  ]  ar  and 


538  ENGLAND. 

to  us  as  the   present — those  are,  the  fruits  of   our  contemporary 
historians. 

Quite  recently  there  has  been  published  a  history  by  Mr.  AVyon 
of  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  which  is  not  without  much  original 
information  and  genuine  research;  while  Mr.  Spencer  "Walpole  has 
already  produced  two  volumes  of  a  "History  of  England,"'  dating 
from  the  end  of  the  Peninsular  vVar,  that  is  at  once  trustworthy, 
comprehensive,  full  of  social  and  political  interest,  and  written  in  a 
style  which  suggests  much  study  of  Macau] ay.  and  which  is  at  once 
scholar-like  and  popular.  Mr.  Green,  who,  in  the  series  of  primers 
which  he  has  followed  Mr.  Freeman  in  editing,  has  contributed  to 
the  formation  of  intelligent  views  on  the  entire  course  of  history, 
takes  a  wider  sweep  in  his  short  and  in  his  longer  "History  of  the 
English  People,"  and  has  collected  and  arranged  an  immense  mass 
of  miscellaneous  facts,  with  great  regard  to  dramatic  grouping.  To 
these  works  must  be  added  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy's  "  History  of  our 
own  Times,"  a  narrative  of  the  chief  events  of  the  Victorian  era, 
written  not  onlv  with  finished  literary  skill,  but  with  great  political 
knowledge  and  insight.  But  the  most  important  historical  works  of 
\  the  present  day  are  not  perhaps  the  popular.  Every  age  produces 
its  own  type  of  historian.  First  comes  the  chronicler  of  events,  who 
narrates  without  connecting  incidents,  and  who  does  not  attempt  to 
discover  the  thread  of  continuitv  that  runs  throughout  the  course 
of  human  affairs.  He  is  followed  by  the  more  thoughtful  researcher, 
who  goes  beneath  the  surface  and  discovers  the  sequence  of  princi- 
ples involved  in  successive  episodes;  thus  the  philosophy  of  history 
is  made  possible,  and,  as  time  passes  by,  it  is  necessary  that  his- 
tory should  be  rewritten  repeatedly.  The  accumulating  experi- 
ences of  humanity  throw  new  light  not  only  oh  the  prospect,  but 
on  the  retrospect.  These  experiences  are  often  of  a  special  kind, 
and  they  are  not  to  be  found  unless  they  are  diligently  sought  for. 
Thev  are  contained  not  onlv  in  great  national  events,  revolutions, 
and  wars,  but  in  archives  and  records,  parliamentary  proclamations, 
decrees,  and  registers,  household  accounts  and  family  records.  Much 
of  the  activity  of  the  present  day  has  been  exclusively  devoted  to  un- 
earthing these  buried  sources  of  knowledge.  The  Public  Record 
Office  has  been  publishing  for  years  past  a  series  of  most  valuable 
papers  which  render  it  necessary  to  modify  many  of  the  views  which 
were  once  held  on  such  matters  as  the  growth  of  the  English  Con- 
stitution.  To  Professor  Stubbs  belongs  pre-eminently  the  honor 
not  only  of  having  in  many  case3  edited  these  and  collected  them, 
but  in  having  illustrated  their  full  significance,  and  in  having  shown 


MODERN   CULTURE    AND    UT 


what  reconstruction  in  our  scheme  of  the  earlj  history  oi 
they  necessitate. 

If  the  influence  of  German  thought  may  be  »  en  in  much  of  the 
theological -writing  of  the  day,  it  is  equally  possible  to  discern  the 
influence  of  French  thought  in  much  of  thai  writing  which,  w 
as  it  traits  of  politics  and  philosophy  as  affording  a  practical  gu 
for  life,  may  be  considered  almost  i\ •Unions.     Whili 
phen  and  Mr.  Froude  illustrate  the  potency  of  the  docti 

i  Carlyle,   whose   "Hero  Worship"  has  I I  rgely  nourished  on 

German  materials,  Mr.  John  Morley  and    Mr.    Frederic    Harrison 
are  equally  noticeable  as  being  exponents  of  the  culture  which  is 

I  essentially  French.     The  sympathy  of  each   is  undisguisedly  with 
the  men  either  antecedent  to  or  immediately  contemp  >rarj    with 
the  French  Revolution.     Mr.  John  Morley's   \,    rks   on    Voltaire, 
Rousseau,  above  all,  his  sympathy  with  Diderol    and   t]      '      och 
Encyclopedists,   strike  the   key-note   of   his   practical    philosophy. 
The  view  which  both  he  and,  in  liis  "Order  and  Progress,"   Mr. 
Frederic    Harrison    take   of    human   society,    is   exactly    thai    which 
would  have  commended  itself  to  these  master  spiril  .     ' 'I     ■   pro- 
mise" is  the  book  which  might  almosl  be  cited  as  a  co  .urn 
of  Mr.  Morley's  philosophy  of  ht'e.     It'  society  is  not  bo  much  . 
growth,  whose  foundations  are  rooted  in  the  sentiments,  the  preju- 
dices, and  even  the  superstitions  of  past  ages,  but   something  thai 
can  be  eminently  and  quickly  modified  from  time  to  time  ing 
its  features  with  tolerable  rapidity  at  the  bidding  and  by  I 
of   eminent   individuals,    it   follows   that    twvy   man   who    1 
strongly  in  the  falsity  of     Id  notions,  or  in  the  truth  o            m  w,  is 
bound  to  lose  no  opportunity  ■■          rgetioalrj  i      ' 
from  the  bulk  of  surrounding  opinion.    Mr.  Mori                 ot,  ind< 
ignore  the  historical  argument  against  Bud<                      I            ap- 
pears to  think  that  it  is  overrate  d,  and  that  timidity  and 
exaggerate  the  difficulties  of  the  process  which  b  ■  advocal 
are  two  other  points  to  be  noticed  in  the  political  phi]  Ich 
Mr.  Morley  enforces,  with  the  eloquence  of  a  literary  master,  and 
the  fervor  of  a  political  apostle.     In  the  first  place,  he  does  Dot 
tinctly  tell  us  w;           mpromise  becomes  criminal     Et  is  ] 
ble,  he  says,  when  the  most  sacred  I                             are  involi 
Surely,  this  i  -                auction  of  compromise,  and  the  great  m< 
of  Mr.  Morley's  b  i  >k  is  thai  a  man  with  strong  • 
to  express  those  conviction.-,  only  when,  in  1             ion,  a  com 
season  for  then  exp                                          \             •       Morlej   d< 
not  attempt  to  fix  the  degree  of  belief  or  p<  rsuasion  at  which  u  1. 


540  ENGLAND. 

must  have  arrived,  before  lie  commences  to  place  limitations  upon 
the  habit  of  compromise;  nor  perhaps  does  he  give  sufficient  prac- 
tical weight  to  the  results  of  the  destructive  process,  which  the  con- 
duct he  commends  would  have  upon  old  and  complex  society.  The 
standard  of  practical  life  which  Mr.  Morley  sets  before  himself  and 
others  is  of  an  exceedingly  lofty  character,  but  though  love  of  truth 
and  a  fearless  pursuit  of  truth  are  enough  to  insure  its  realization 
in  certain  exceptional  instances,  it  may  very  well  be  that  they  have 
not  this  coercive  power  with  the  mass  of  men,  and  that  men  are  so 
constituted,  are  so  much  the  creatures  of  fear  and  hope,  that  what 
Mx.  Morley  himself  is  persuaded  are  lies  and  delusions,  are  abso- 
lutely necessary  for  them. 

The  same  considerations  which  would  be  suggested  by  a  minute 
examination  of  the  works  of  George  Eliot  are  also  those  which  pre- 
sent themselves  when  the  tenor  of  Mr.  Morley's  counsels  is  closely 
scanned.  Nothing  in  theory  may  sound  more  plausible  than  the 
postponement  of  self  and  of  family  to  the  idea  of  mankind,  but  in 
practice  can  it  carry  with  it  any  guarantee  of  efficiency?  To  the 
bulk  of  men  and  women  can  the  welfare  and  progress  of  society 
ever  be  any  thing  more  than  ideas?  Will  it,  as  the  education  of  the 
human  race  advances,  be  possible  for  them  to  deduce  their  notions 
of  moral  duty  from  a  just  estimate  of  the  relations  of  the  individual 
and  of  the  family  to  society  ?  Is  there  any  thing  in  the  past  history 
of  the  human  race  to  make  us  think  that  weak  mortals  can  arrive 
at  a  knowledge  of  their  duty  to  each  other  unless  the  elements  of 
that  knowledge  are  culled  from  a  superhuman  source?  Ideas  of 
duty,  it  may  be  urged,  have  their  origin  in  something  else  than  in 
the  daily  intercourse  of  man,  and  devotion  to  society  is  as  inade- 
quate to  explain  them  or  to  prompt  them  as  utilitarianism  is  to 
explain  the  higher  virtues  of  humanity — heroism,  self-sacrifice,  mar- 
tyrdom. When  the  ends  which  Mr.  Morley  and  George  Eliot  ad- 
mire are  advocated,  is  it  not  possible  that  those  who  advocate  them 
may  be  under  influences  which  they  ignore  ?  This  higher  and  dis- 
interested morality  would  surely  never  have  existed  without  the 
educating  agency  of  Christianity;  and  as  for  what  future  genera- 
tions may  do  without  Christianity,  is  it  impossible  to  form  any 
opinion?  Will  the  social  morality  of  compromise  or  of  George 
Eliot  be  an  end  in  itself,  requiring  none  of  the  motives  or  sanc- 
tions implied  by  Christianity  ? 

But  the  popular  and  essentially  humanizing  literature  of  the  day 
is  not  to  be  found  in  books  alone.  There  is  the  vast  multitude  of 
magazines,  serials,  and  newspajiers  to  be  taken  into  account.     Of 


MODERN   CULTURE    AXD    LITERATURE.  . .  ,  I 

newspapers,  we  shall  have  something  to  say  in  a  future  cl 
Every  household,  high  or  humble,  has  its  own  monthly  or  weekly 
miscellany  of  instructive  and  amusing  literature.     1 I  these  encoure 
desultory  reading,  it  is  certain  that  without  them  there  are  hundr< 
and  thousands  of  English  men  and  women  who  would  read  \> 
little,  if  at  all.     In  the  same  way  the  serial  issues  of  great  woi  ka 
many,  and  exceedingly  effective  in  introducing  these  works  bo  the 
public.     There  are  many  persons  in  every  class  of  life  who   will 
readily  pay  a  small  sum  for  each  number  of  a  large  work  issued  in 
parts,  and  who  refuse  to  pay  a  greater  sum  for  such  a  work  as  a 
substantive  whole. 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

POPULAR     AMUSEMENTS. 

Change  and  Multiplied  Variety  of  Popular  Amusements — The  Traveling  Show- 
man and  Photographer — The  Development  of  the  Excursion  System — Scene 
on  the  Norfolk  Coast — Amusements  in  the  Manufacturing  Districts  and 
the  Black  Country  —  Music-halls  —  Museums — Art  Exhibitions — Working 
Lien's  Clubs— The  Institution  and  its  Working  described — How  to  stamp 
out  Drunkenness — The  Stage  —  Change  in  its  Position— The  Play-going 
Public — Change  in  Social  Position  of  Actors — The  Stage  the  Mirror  of  Con- 
temporary Manners — Reasons  of  its  alleged  Decadence — Its  Realism  and 
Lack  of  Poetry — Dangers  of  this  Realism — What  a  Dramatic  Censor  may 
prevent — Uses  of  a  Dramatic  Censor — Relations  of  English  and  French 
Public  to  their  respective  Stages — The  English  Drama  and  the  Divorce 
Court — French  Plays  in  England. 


IT  would  be  impossible  to  form  a  better  idea  of  the  advance  made 
by  Englishmen  of  all  classes,  whether  in  town  or  country,  in  the 
art  of  "  popular  amusement "  than  from  a  comparison  of  the  adver- 
tisements relating  to  sports,  pastimes,  and  recreation  in  a  newspaper 
of  to-day  with  those  which  made  their  appearance  less  than  half  a 
century  since.  One  would  look  in  vain  now  for  the  announcements 
of  pugilistic  encounters  arranged  between  bruisers  of  established 
and  growing  reputation,  cock-fights,  dog-fights,  and  performances 
of  terrier  dogs,  backed  for  large  sums  to  kill  several  scores  of  rats 
within  a  limited  space  and  time.  One  would  have  looked  in  vain 
then  for  the  accounts  of  cricket-matches,  and  of  the  scores  made  by 
their  players,  in  different  parts  of  England,  which  now  occupy  entire 
pages  of  the  sporting  journals;  for  the  notices  to  excursionists  that 
are  a  regular  feature  in  every  newspaper  during  the  summer  season; 
for  the  miscellaneous  programmes  of  picture  exhibitions,  lectures, 
theaters,  music-halls,  entertainments  of  all  kinds,  places  of  amuse- 
ment of  every  variety,  which  have  become  an  essential  part  of  the 
machinery  of  our  social  life.  Within  the  last  five-and-twenty  years 
cricket  clubs  and  football  clubs  have  been  formed  in  all  the  towns 


POPULAR    AMI  -SE.VEXTS. 

and  most  of  the  villages  in  England     The  rifle  volunteer  movement 
has  presented  another  opportunity  <>t'  healthy  oui  door  exerc 
athletic  sports  have   been  added   to  our  muscular  By  stem; 

aces  and  villa  ens  are  the  recognized  pla;  of  the 

people.     What  were  formerly  wastes  have  been  co  I  into  pub- 

lic gardens.      ]  arc  people's   pleasure-grounds  in   I        <       I    End 

of  Lon. lou.  and  scarcely  a  year  passes  without  an  addition  b< 
made  to  the  people's  parks,  which  have  been  given  bj  the  bou 
of  great  landlords  to  the  industrial  cities  of  the  oorth. 

As  it  has  been  with  open-air  pastimes,  so  has  n  I.,  .  q  with  in<l 
amusements.     In  the  country  the  public-house,  if  still  the  chief,  is 
not  the  absolutely  paramount  and  exclusive  ati  m.     There  are 

penny  readings,  where  the  voice  of  the  reader  is  varied  by  m  i 
I  vocal  and  instrumental;  there  are  book  societies.  Lecture  i,  and,  in 
many  instances,  reading-rooms  supplied  tor  the  ben<  ;ii  of  the  mem- 
bers— all  working  men — with  a  selection  of  the  newspapers  of  the 
day.  Even  the  annual  fair  which,  in  the  adjoining  country  town, 
was  \':  at  dissipation  of  the  year,  is  an  institution  almost  oui 

date.      Human  monstrosities  fascinate  the  eve  no  longer,  ami  iir. 
tions  to  witness  the  display  of  bicephalous  womanhood  insidi 
vas  booth  meet  with  so  cold  a  n  sponse  that  they  are  seldoi  I. 

The  showman's  van.  which,  a  quarter  of  a  century  sine.',  collet 
the  whole  country  side  to  view  its  contents,  has  aim  ed  to 

exist.     Neither  the  eloquence  nor  the  art  which  once  added  r 
never-failing  embellishments  to  this  traveling  world  of  won,!,  rs 
would    suffice  to  secure    customers   or   admirers    now.     The    li 
black  silhoui  standing  out  in  prominent  relief  against  a  \\ 

background,  in  which  this  same  thaumaturgist  would  depict   the 
profile  of  your  countenance  for  the  price  of  one  shilling,  is  a  relic 
of  the  past,  and  the  showman's  reign  ended  when  thai  of  the  pho- 
tographer began.     Now  it  is  the  day  of  the  roaming  photoj  raj 
which  is  itself  coming  to  a  close.     The   proprietors  of   i 

hibitions  of  every  kind  complain  that   business  has  laments 
fallen  offj  and  tho     3       [uestrian  troupes  still  m  □  a 

living  by  making  periodical  pilgrimages  through  th<  aer 

forms  of  tnent  are  accessible  all  the  year  round  in  the  imn 

diately  contiguous  capital  of  every  country  district  The  <•!. 
trains  and  railw  m.  which  have  proved  the  ruin 

shown. an.  have  multiplied  indefinitely  the  opportuniti  ogralar 

recreation  among  the  peasantry  of  England. 

In  the  childhood  of  many  a  man   and  woman  wl 
middle-aged  the  village  feast  wa    I  I  juluh 


544  ENGLAND. 

universally  recognized  holiday  of  the  year.  There  was  a  substantial 
dinner,  there  was  a  brass  band,  there  were  games  and  dances,  cricket 
and  rounders  for  the  boys,  and  kiss-in-the-ring  for  Giles  and  his 
sweetheart.  But  as  soon  as  the  neighborhood  became  accustomed 
to  the  snorting  and  puffing  of  the  steam-engine,  its  old  men  and 
women,  its  young  men  and  maids,  took  advantage  of  it  to  explore 
the  almost  unknown  world  which  lay  close  to  them.  They  were,  in 
the  parlance  of  certain  traffic  managers,  put  upon  the  fidget,  and 
the  dividends  of  railway  companies  rose  in  proportion.  Just  as  it 
was  the  Exhibition  of  1851  from  which  must  be  dated  the  first  great 
steps  towards  improvement  made  by  English  people  in  art  and 
decorative  design,  so  may  the  opening  of  the  Crystal  Palace  at 
Sydenham  be  identified  with  a  new  departure  in  the  region  of  popu- 
lar amusement.  The  Crystal  Palace  is  at  the  present  day  the  ren- 
dezvous for  country  parties,  which  come  from  all  quarters  within  a 
radius  of  fifty  or  sixty  miles  from  London. 

These  pilgrimages  of  pleasure  have  familiarized  the  masses  with 
the  idea  of  jaunts  taken  with  the  same  end  in  other  directions.  Our 
ever-growing  railway  system  has  supplied  the  means,  and  now  the 
excursion  may  be  said  to  be  one  of  the  chief  amusements  of  our 
toiling  millions.  Travel  through  any  part  of  England  on  Saturday, 
Monday,  or  Tuesday,  and  you  will  find  that  the  local  lines  swarm 
with  villagers  going  to  or  returning  from  the  town  on  missions  of 
business  or  of  pleasure,  or,  more  likely,  of  both  combined.  This  is 
the  way  in  which  the  money  formerly  reserved  for  rustic  holidays  is 
disposed  of.  If  those  rural  pleasure-takers  are  within  a  convenient 
distance  of  London,  to  London  many  of  them  will  go.  If  not,  they 
put  by  their  savings  and  spend  them  on  trips  to  their  provincial 
metropolis. 

If  one  wishes  to  have  a  true  and  graphic  idea  of  what  the 
modern  excursion  system  is,  of  how  great  is  the  hold  which  it 
has  acquired  among  the  masses,  a  sight  may  be  mentioned  that 
can  be  witnessed  almost  any  day  in  the  summer  or  autumn  months 
upon  the  Norfolk  coast.  It  is  eleven  in  the  forenoon,  and  the  beach 
is  not  only  tranquil,  but  almost  desolate.  Half  a  dozen  fishermen 
are  visible  mending  their  nets  or  smoking  the  pipe  of  moody  silence. 
There  is  not  a  sound  which  blends  with  the  fretting  of  the  waves 
against  the  pebbles,  unless  it  be  the  shrill  cry  of  the  sea-bird,  or 
possibly  the  distant  and  muffled  scream  of  the  whistle  of  the  rail- 
way train,  audible  for  many  miles  over  these  treeless  levels  and 
bleak  sand  hills.  Wait  a  minute  and  you  shall  see  what  you  shall 
see.     It  is  a  quarter  past  eleven  now,  and  in  twenty  minutes'  time 


POPULAR   AMU5>  rs.  ;,  C 

an  excursion  train  is  due  at  the  adjoining  station.  Presently  rou 
are  conscious  of  the  murmur  of  strange  arrivals  and  the  bustling 
note  of  preparation.  You  look  around  and  find  that  upwards  of 
a  hundred  men  have  Buddenly  invaded  the  place,  are  Betting  up 
booths,  furnishing  them  with  eatables  and  drinkables,  are  establish- 
ing Aunt  Sailics.  ami  providing  the  machinery  of  other  delectable 
pastimes.  In  less  than  fifteen  minutes  the  deserted  beach  has  been 
transformed,  and  what  was  absolute  solitude  now  presents  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  tair  which  wants  nothing  to  complete  it  excepl  the 

advent  of  its  patrons.  Here  these  patrons  are,  or  pivsenth  will  he. 
Puff-puff  is  the  warning  sound  of  the  steam-engine  in  the  distance, 
and  the  wreaths  of  smoke  which  for  a  minute  darken  the  heavei 
and  then  are  swept  away  by  the  wind,  are  significant  of  the  cloud  of 
humanity  that  in  a  few  seconds  will  settle  down  upon  the  shore. 
Out  they  troop  from  the  carriages  which  have  just  drawn  up  at  the 
platform — men,  women,  boys,  and  children,  a  good  thousand  strong. 
It  is  likely  enough  that  there  are  other  contingents  yet  to  arrive. 
The  excursionist  is  a  gregarious  animal,  and  the  bigger  the  crowd 
in  which  he  takes  his  pleasure  the  more  lie  enjovs  it.  It  is  by  no 
means  an  uncommon  thing  to  witness  the  sea-coast,  on  which  an 
hour  since  not  more  human  beings  were  visible  than  could  be 
counted  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand,  covered  by  three  thousand 
human  beings,  restlessly  moving  to  and  fro  like  the  microscopic 
army  <>t'  an  ant-hill.  Fun  and  frolic  reign  all  day  until  the  mo- 
ment for  departure  on  the  return  journey  arrives.  Then  may  be 
observed  the  reverse  of  the  phenomenon  of  the  morning.  Ani- 
mation is  gone  almost  as  quickly  as  it  came.  The  trains  give  a  few 
premonitory  rumblings  and  disappear.  The  last  notes  of  the  excur- 
sionists1 songs  die  away  on  the  wind;  the  echoes  are  undisturbed  by 
peals  of  laughter;  and  the  hucksters  who  have  waited  on  the  great 
army  of  pleasure-seekers  pack  up  their  belongings,  fold  up  their 
tents  like  the  Arabs,  steal  away  as  silently  and  swiftly  as  they 
alighted,  and  leave  the  philosopher  to  reflect  in  sudden  solitude 
upon  the  moral  of  the  day's  experience. 

On  the  northwest   coasi  of  the  United  Kingdom   the  develop- 
ment of  the  excursion  system  is  even  more  conspicuous  than  on  the 

east.  The  manufacturers  of  the  north  and  the  great  retailers,  who, 
for  the  most  part,  are  north-countrymen,  cannot  be  accused  of  neg- 
lecting the  social  relaxations  of  those  whom  they  employ.  Lytham, 
Fleetwood,  and  New  Brighton  are  only  a  few  of  the  marine  r< 
of  myriads  of  the  op  ratives  let  loose  from  the  great  ton  ns  of  north- 
ern industry;  and  if  the  goal  of  these  is  in  t  d>- 
35 


546  ENGLAND. 

lie-house  bar  rather  than  the  shore  of  the  sea,  it  is  permissible  to 
hope  that  tobacco  smoke  and  beer  do  not  entirely  neutralize  the 
beneficent  agencies  of  oxygen  and  ozone.  Generally  it  may  be 
said  that  the  laboring  classes  in  the  north  of  England  are  better  off 
as  regards  amusements  than  in  the  south.  Many  great  works  or 
factories  have  attached  to  them  not  only  reading-rooms,  but  bil- 
liard-rooms and  bowling-alleys.  When  these  opportunities  are  not 
provided  by  the  employer,  they  are  sometimes  secured  by  the  men, 
who  club  together,  and,  applying  the  principle  of  co-operation, 
wisely  supersede  the  attractions  of  the  public-house.  Other  and 
more  active  recreations  than  these  are  forthcoming:  cricket,  wres- 
tling, and  every  variety  of  athletic  sport  enjoy  an  increasing  popu- 
larity throughout  the  whole  of  the  north  of  England.  In  the 
Pottery  Districts,  and  in  the  vicinity  of  Manchester,  rabbit-cours- 
ing, with  a  peculiar  breed  of  little  greyhound,  is  much  in  vogue. 
With  the  shoemakers  of  Northamptonshire— and,  indeed,  amongst 
shoemakers  of  all  parts  of  England — foot-racing  is  a  favorite  pas- 
time. The  artisans  of  Birmingham  and  Coventry  rejoice  in  bicy- 
cles. Among  the  rural  and  urban  toilers  of  Yorkshire  knurr  and 
spell — a  species  of  trap,  bat,  and  ball — still  flourishes.  In  some 
counties  (eminently  in  Nottinghamshire)  wherever  there  is  a  fair 
expanse  of  level  and  unoccupied  grass  land,  the  wickets  are  sure  to 
be  pitched,  and  boys  and  men  practice  with  bat  and  ball — some  of 
them  destined  to  blossom  into  professional  players — after  the  day's 
work  is  over. 

In  rural  districts  there  are  hundreds  of  cottagers,  now  that 
cottage  gardening  has*  received  systematic  encouragement  in  spe- 
cial shows  for  cottage  competitors,  and  that  prizes  are  specially 
reserved  for  these  at  more  general  horticultural  exhibitions,  whose 
spare  hours  are  entirely  given  to  gardening.  If  one  comes  to 
London,  it  is  not  necessai*y  to  mention  Epping  Forest  as  the 
Arcadia  of  the  artisan  of  the  East  End;  Ramsgate  and  Margate 
as  the  marine  paradises  of  the  multitude ;  or  Battersea  Park  as  the 
great  Sunday  lounge  of  various  social  subdivisions  of  the  commu- 
nity, from  the  head  clerk  down  to  the  junior  porter.  Naturally  in 
such  a  climate  as  ours,  the  working  classes  will  always  find  the 
larger  part  of  their  amusement  within  four  walls.  Thirty  years 
ago,  with  the  sole  exception  of  the  theater,  the  only  available  resort 
for  the  masses  was  the  public-house.  We  are  as  completely  out- 
living that  state  of  things  as  we  have  outlived  the  period  when 
"  Cross's  Menagerie  "  was  one  of  the  great  attractions  of  the  Strand, 
and  the  skeleton  of  the  whale  was  the  only  lion  in  Trafalgar  Square. 


."17 

If  there  cannot  yet  be  said  to  have  been  establi  hed  an  absolute 
identify  between  instruction   and   amusement,   the   Bte] 
made  in  the  direction  of  reform  are  immen         M 
Bpread  an  atmos  of  pure  refinein  int,  and  are  not  without  their 

mischievous  influences  upon  the  moral  currency,  but  they  are  n< 
the  less,  if  properly  conducted,  antic]..;  pular  cura 

drunkenness.  They  exist  in  every  large  town  in  England,  and  I 
composition  of  their  audiences  presents  Borne  features  which  are  • 
entirely  unsatisfactory.  It  ;s  claimed  on  behalf  of  the  Frenchr 
that  while  there  may  be  no  one  who  is  at  1  ■  little,  there  is  no 

one  who  loves  that  home  so  nmch.  He  takes,  we  are  told,  the  in- 
fluence of  the  domestic  hearth  with  him  wl  ibroad. 
The  society,  in  fact,  in  which  he  chiefly  moves  is  an  extension  of 
home;  and  if  lie  is  happy,  and  is  really  equally  at  home  anywhi 
it  is  because  he  is  not  unaca  mpanied  by  his  wife  and  children. 
A  very  casual  study  of  the  company  that  tills  B  lusic  halls, 
whether  in  London  or  el  .  will  convince  one  thai  at  least  a 
portion  of  it  consists  of  genuinely  family  parties— husbands  and 
wives,  fathers,  mother;,  and  one  or  two  of  their  children.  The 
attempt  which  is  now  being  mad..  i>>  establish  coffee-house  music- 
halls  will  certainly  prove  a  strong  and  wholesome  antidote  to  the 
public-house  and  the  gin-shop. 

There  are  other  not  less  popular  recreations  of  the  masses  which 
stand  on  a  much  higher  level     The  stati  tics  and   I  published 

in  the  newspapers  from  week  to  week  Bhow  how  large  is  tic  in- 
ure  of  popularity  which   institutions   like   the   South    Kensington 
Museum,  the  National  Gallery,  and  other-  V  wider 

rienee  than  London,  unhappily,  affords  of  the  w  Thing  of  t' 
library  system   is  necessary  to   convey   a  just    idea   of  the   unmet 
boon  which  free  Libraries  constitute  to  the  working  cla         I. 
inside  the  doors  of  these  establishments  in  Mai  r  or  Birmii 

ham  during  the  dinner-hour,  and  note  the  attention  and  I 
em  at  with  which  the  artisans  ■■<;■■  reading,  not   n< 

but  the  c  of  English  Literature  and  the  manuals  of  modern 

science.     Add  to  the  free  libraries  the  working-men's  clubs,  and  i 
fair  id<  i  maybe  formed  of  the  character  and  ext     t  of  the  human- 
izing machinery  thai  is  already  at  work  amongst  the  masses  throu 
out  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  Land. 

The  working-man's  club  is  an  institution  not   only  from  a  po- 
litical   point    of   view  1  •  but    in    i  itly 
beneficent.     It  i-.  t.><>.  an  institution  which  is  repre                 of  a 
rowing  •            There                                                         '  working 


548  ENGLAND. 

men  in  London,  and  they  are  to  be  found  in  every  considerable 
town  in  England.  In  some  cases  tliere  is  no  mention  of  political 
principles  of  any  kind  in  the  club  rules.  In  others,  the  political 
cause  with  which  the  society  is  identified  is  Conservative  or  Liberal; 
the  programme  in  a  majority  of  instances  being  of  a  decidedly 
Liberal  and  even  democratic  complexion.  Yet  how  groundless  are 
any  apprehensions  as  to  the  constitutional  peril  latent  in  these  pro- 
fessions may  be  judged  from  a  glimpse  at  the  interior  life  of  the 
club,  and  a  comparison  between  its  ostensible  objects  and  its  prac- 
i  ical  functions.  The  institution  which  we  will  now  visit,  and  which 
may  be  taken  as  typical  of  many  others,  has  been  in  existence  about 
half  a  dozen  years.  It  has  nearly  six  hundred  members,  aU  of  whom, 
without  exception,  are  bona  fide  working  men — some  small  masters, 
some  highly- skilled  mechanics  making  £3  or  £4  a  week,  others  whose 
weekly  wage  is  from  25s.  to  30s.  The  admission  to  the  club  is  by 
ballot  among  members  of  the  committee,  and  any  conduct  which 
is  offensive,  or  which  threatens  the  harmony  of  the  institution,  is 
punished  as  severely  and  after  the  same  fashion — by  expulsion — as 
"conduct  unworthy  of  a  gentleman"  would  be  in  one  of  the  co- 
operative palaces  of  Pall  Mall  or  St.  James's  Street,  The  subscrip- 
tion is  about  15s.  a  year,  and  it  has  lately  been  decided  that  visitors' 
refreshments  must  be  paid  for  by  the  friends  who  introduce  them — 
a  rule  which  adds  to  the  radical  difference  between  these  establish- 
ments and  the  public-house. 

This  is  the  chief  room  of  the  building:  a  spacious  hall  for  debate, 
with  a  stage   at  one  end  for  occasional  dramatic  entertainments. 

.  Immediately  adjoining  it  is  a  smaller  chamber  furnished  with  a 
refreshment  buffet,  from  which  all  visitors  are  rigorously  excluded. 
If  our  visit  happens  to  be  during  the  hours  of  daylight  the  place 
will  be  deserted  but  for  the  presence  of  a  few  stray  members,  clad 
in  their  working  dress,  who  have  lounged  in  during  the  dinner-hour 
to  read  the  papers.  In  the  billiard-room,  the  bagatelle-room,  the 
chess-room,  the  refreshment-room,  the  reading-room,  there  may  also 
be  found  one  or  two  mechanics  who  are  taking  a  holiday,  or  who 
are  perhaps  out  of  work.  The  reading-room  is  seldom  absolutely 
empty.  Like  the  other  apartments,  it  opens  out  of  the  central  hall, 
is  well  supplied  with  the  chief  newspapers  of  the  day,  with  various 
organs  of  different  trades  and  industries,  not  only  English,  but 
American,  and  in  a  few  cases  German  and  French,  and  has  in 
addition  a  fair  library.     The  works  of  John  Stuart  Mill  are  there, 

\  while  those  of  Thomas  Carlyle  for  the  most  part  are  not.  The 
writings  of  another  obscure  heresiarch  of  a  former  generation,  of 


POPULAR   AMD  VS. 

a  name  of  similar  sound  lmf   differed   orthography,  Carlial 
f  prominently  visible  on  the  shelves.     There,  too,  ore  the  books  wh 
authors  are  Herbert  Spencer,  Thomas  Hare,   Lecky,  and   Buckle; 
while  there  is  a  multitude  of  publications  whose  lilies  haveastrai 
sound  to  English  ears,  bul  which  have  won  greal   popularity 
Transatlantic  continent.     The  room  is  furth<  roi  I  with  p 

traits  of  certain  more  advanced  members  of  the  House  of  I     • 
distinguished  patrons  of  the  Republican  cause  on  the  I 
ami  notably  a  picture  of  George  Washington  and  his  family,  wh 
has  been  sent  as  a  present  to  the  club  from  a  group  of  Bympatb 
working  men  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

As  the  day  draws  to  its  close  the  club  begins  gradually  to  fill. 
Here  are  the  representatives  of  all  (he  industries  which  have  tl 
head-quarters  in  great  cities.     They  come  in  their  workaday  >\r^ 
yet  not  without  having  paid  some  special    preliminary  attention 
to  their  personal  appearance.     They  have  been   home,  have  gone 
through  a  simple  toilet,  have  had  their  tea,  and  a  rasher  of  ba 
with  it.  have  probably  smoked  the  pipe  of  domestii  .  and  have 

not  forgotten  to  say  good-night  to  the  little  ones  in  bed.     T 
want  change  of  scene  and  conversation,  and  they  gel   it  at   0 
club.     They  read,  smoke,  and  chat  by  turns.     There   is  sure  t  i 
some  discussion  in  the  great  hall  on  some  topic  of  the  day.     0 
member  reads  a  short  paper,  let  it  be  supposed,  on  the  ] 
protection,  or  the  justice  of  reciprocity,  to  native  trade,  or 
representation  of  the  interests  of  labor  in  Parliament.      A   d  ibate 
follows,  and  much  of  the  speaking  which  maybe  heard  is  surpris- 
ingly good.     Sometimes  there  are  visitors.     An  American  or  Ger- 
man operative  narrates  his  experiences  to  hi      nests,  or  a  nan 
who  takes  an  interest  in  workin  \  men  audi  their  doings  addresses 
them  on  the  subject  of  his  travels  in  foreign  puts,  or  acquau 
them  with  his  views  on  matters  nearer  home.     On  Sunday  aighi  a 
.    kind  of  grand  field-day  of  the  club  is  held.     There  is  i  i  lec- 
ture; the  topics  suggested  are  infinitely  various,  conveying  m 
valuable  instruction.     The  theme     '     -  n  is  seldom  suited  to  the 
sanctity  of  the  day;  the  moral  pointed  would  no!  always  commend 
itself  to  the  political  quietist     Be  thai  as  it  may,  it  is  certainly  b 
ter  that  these  men  should  be  in  their  clubs  than  at   the  public- 
houses  or  the  gin-shops.     If  drunkenness  is  ever  stamped  oxA  En 
among  the  English  working  classes  it   will  be  largely  due  to  I 
agency  of  such  institutions  as  these.     It  is  nol   Utopian  to  beli< 
that  clubs  may,  in  course  of  time,  and  as  educatii                         do  for 
laboring  men  what  they  have  already  done  for  the   upp 


550  ENGLAND. 

and  render  open  intoxication  a  barbarous  anachronism.  As  they 
have  created  among  the  upper  classes  a  public  opinion  which  is  un- 
favorable to  excess,  so  wherever  they  exist  among  the  lower  classes 
we  find  them  doing,  or  tending  to  do,  the  same  good  work.  It  is 
beginning  to  be  recognized  that  the  man  who  is  drunk  is,  for  the 
time  being,  not  only  a  brute,  but  a  nuisance. 

Whatever  may  be  the  condition  or  the  prospects  of  the  drama 
in  England,  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  its  claim  to  be  considered  a 
popular  institution,  or  as  to  the  fact  that  for  an  increasingly  large 
number  of  persons  the  stage  supplies  the  chief,  if  not  the  only,  cul- 
ture which  they  know.  The  theater  has  become  in  London  not 
merely  an  occasional  amusement,  but  a  regular  pursuit.  Among 
classes  socially  quite  distinct  and  different  the  chief  idea  of  an 
evening's  amusement  is  an  evening  at  the  play.  One  finds  it  at  the 
East  End,  where  the  same  persons  repair  nightly  to  witness  over  and 
over  again  the  same  performance.  The  same  phenomenon  meets 
one  at  the  West,  where  the  theater  is  not  only  a  place  in  which  to  sit 
still  and  laugh  or  wonder,  according  as  the  spirit  of  comedy  or 
tragic  awe  is  in  the  ascendant,  but  a  lounge  where  cigarettes  may 
be  smoked,  friends  met  and  chatted  with,  and  the  news  of  the  even- 
ing obtained.  This  is  an  importation  of  Continental  usages  into  En- 
gland within  the  last  decade.  Evenings  at  home  are  enjoyable  and 
admirable  in  their  way,  but  how  many  tens  of  thousands  are  there 
in  London  and  other  large  cities  who  have  evenings  to  spare  but  no 
home  in  particular  at  which  to  spend  them,  not  to  mention  the  daily 
influx  of  casual  visitors  from  the  country,  or  of  sojourners  en  route 
for  India  or  the  colonies,  or  of  Americans  of  passage  to  and  from 
the  Continent  ?  There  is,  further,  a  large  percentage  of  young  men 
sufficiently  well-to-do,  who,  if  they  have  their  offices  in  the  day,  and 
their  chambers  and  clubs  at  night,  are  not  overburdened  with  social 
engagements,  and  may,  perhaps,  prefer  the  independence  of  the 
play-house  to  the  hospitable  constraints  of  a  decorous  dinner-table. 
Writh  these  the  theater  is  not  the  least  important  business  of  their 
lives.  There  is  not  a  new  piece  which  is  produced  that  they  miss. 
They  are  seldom  absent  on  first  nights.  They  know  the  critics 
by  sight.  They  belong  probably  to  some  one  or  other  of  the  minor 
literary  or  dramatic  clubs.  They  skim  the  newspapers  of  the  morn- 
ing and  evening,  but  serious  study  is  not  to  their  taste,  and  the 
theater  is. 

There  is  little  or  nothing  in  common  between  the  modern  play- 
goer and  the  ancient  enthusiast  in  the  classic  days  of  the  Patent 
Houses.     The  cheap  enjoyment  of  that  period  he  would  vote  vulgar. 


POP  I Z  A  R   AMI  SIM  i:\ts.  :,  5 1 

Ho  has  no  idea  of  waiting  a  couple  of  hours  outside  the  pil  door, 
and  then  fervently  congratulating  himself  if  he  has  secured  a 
well  in  front  of  the  stage.  When  the  play  is  over,  it  is  not  with 
stout  and  oysters  that  he  will  refresh  his  inner  man,  On  (lie  con- 
trary, he  has  conformed  to  the  modern  type  of  exquisite.  Il<  mak<  a 
a  point  of  appearing  in  full  evening  dress.  Hi'  never  touches  sup- 
per: it  hurts  his  digestion.  He  is  afraid  of  stout:  it  is  the  declared 
enemy  of  his  liver.  The  place  which  the  theater  fills  in  the  mind 
society  at  large  is  equally  remarkable.  Together  with  old  china  ..ml 
new  pictures,  it  divides  polite  conversation  in  drawing-rooms  and  at 
dinner-tables.     It  is  considered  quite  as  necessary  to  go  to  see  the 

/  last  new  play  as  the  last  new  opera  Even  society's  conception  of 
the  calling  and  personality  of  the  actor  has  undergone  a  complete 
change.  Directly  or  indirectly,  clubs  have  done  a  great  deal  to 
bridge  over  the  gulf  that  once  existed  between  classes.  If  they 
have  not  promoted  what  is  called  good  fellowship,  they  have  at 
least  done  the  important  service  of  bringing  representative  a  of  dif- 
ferent orders  of  men  into  close  and  friendly  intercourse.  The  actor 
is  above  all  others  a  clubable  man.  The  hours  which  he  is  com- 
pelled to  keep  make  club  life  particularly  convenient  to  him;  and 
when  he  is  at  his  club  he  finds  himself  in  a  circle  which  includes 
men  with  whom  thirty  years  ago  it  is  not  very  likely  that  he  would 
have  been  on  speaking  terms.  The  comparatively  intimate  relation- 
ship which  has  been  established  between  society  and  the  stage  has 
had  its  influence  on  both  parties  to  the  arrangement.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  stage  upon  society  does  not  end  here.  Private  theat- 
ricals may  satisfy  a  trivial  ambition:  there  are  eager  natures  which 
require  something  more  stirring;  for  these  are  the  excitements 
the  public  audience.  Thus  do  we  hear  of  amateur  pantomimes  and 
matinees  at  fashionable  play-houses  hi  the  Strand. 

That  the  stage  is  not  at  the  present  time  a  vehicle  for  the  inculca- 
tion of  the  higher  morality,  and  that,  as  matters  are.  it   is  not  likely 

.  to  be,  must  be  confessed.  The  relaxation  of  public  manners  which 
has  been  in  process  in  this  country  during  several  years  is  reflected 
by  the  footlights,  and  in  the  pieces  which  attain  popularity  behind 
them.  Paris  has  been,  and  remains,  the  capital  of  dramatic  art  or 
invention,  as  well  as  the  resort  of  all  the  idlers  and  demireps  of 
Europe.  Of  late  years,  the  facilities  of  locomotion  and  the  whims 
of  fashion  have  cemented  the  COnn<  ction  between  London  mid  Paris, 

and  the  influences  exercised  upon  our  social  system  by  the  Second 

.      Empire  are  still  rampant.      It    i^  not   only  our    plays,   hut    in  some 

cases  our  domestic  ethics,  which  are  taken  from  the  1'n  nch      of  the 


552  ENGLAND. 

Boulevards;  and  if  the  spirit  of  the  age  tolerates  the  lowest  standard 
of  Parisian  morality,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  plays,  which  are  the 
presentations  of  this  morality,  should  be  popular  in  English  theaters. 
Something  like  an  analogy,  too,  may  he  traced  between  a  London 
and  a  Paris  audience.  French  domestic  life  is  not  represented  in  the 
crowds  that  fill  the  smaller  theaters  of  the  French  capital;  English 
domestic  life  is  represented  almost  as  httle  in  some  of  the  theaters  of 
London.  Prominent  among  the  patrons  of  the  London  stage  are  un- 
critical visitors  from  the  provinces  and  the  not  too  refined  members 
of  our  new  plutocracy.  There  are  other  reasons  which  can  scarcely 
make  us  expect  to  find  any  very  elevated  exemplar  of  morals  or 
manners  on  the  London  stage.  We  dine  later  and  we  work  harder 
than  ever,  and  the  state  of  body  and  mind  which  these  habits  super- 
induce is  scarcely  favorable  to  the  highest  sort  of  intellectual  appre- 
ciation. Again,  free  trade  in  theaters — an  absurd  confusion  of  in- 
dustry and  art — has  dispersed  the  few  good  actors  that  we  had,  has 
destroyed  a  school  of  acting,  and  has  made  room  on  the  stage  for 
some  of  the  crapulous  buffooneries  of  the  music-hall.  Indeed,  while 
the  music-hall  is  a  grade  above  the  gin-shop,  it  is  the  curse  of  the 
stage.  It  vitiates  and  debases  managers,  actors,  audiences  alike. 
As  a  consequence,  it  is  but  too  likely  that  were  the  Act  of  Parliament 
for  regulating  theaters  repealed  the  result  would  be,  not  the  conver- 
sion of  music-halls  into  theaters,  but  of  theaters  into  music-haUs. 
There  are,  perhaps,  now  more  tolerably  good  actors  on  the  English 
boards  than  at  any  other  period;  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  very 
few  actors  who  can  be  called  great,  and  the  tolerably  good  actors 
,  are  quite  incapable  of  representing  the  heroic  or  poetic  draina. 
Their  elocutionary  powers  are  defective,  and  they  are  not  happy 
even  in  then*  attempted  recitals  of  blank  verse.  As  for  a  subsidized 
national  theater,  it  must  be  pronounced  an  impossibility  in  England; 
nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  the  Comedie  Franchise  is  not  merely 
a  subsidized  theater,  but  also  an  incorporated  and  endowed  collegi- 
ate institution,  having  in  some  sort  its  exhibitioners,  its  fellowships, 
its  statutes,  privileges,  and  pensions. 

"La  foule,"  says  Jules  Claretie,  "est  ainsi  faite  qu'elle  s'en  va 
payer  —  et  parfois  tres  cher — pour  admirer  dans  un  theatre  ce 
qu'elle  peut  librement,  et  a  bon  marche  contempler  dans  la  rue.'' 
The  most  striking  feature  of  our  modern  drama  is  its  abject  re- 
alism. This  is  not  a  credulous,  a  poetic,  a  chivalrous,  or  enthusi- 
astic age.  As  is  the  age  so  is  the  theater-going  public,  and  so  is 
the  theater  itself.  We  do  not  want  impossible  feats  of  ennobled 
heroism.     We  want  to  see  life  as  it  is — life  sometimes  as  it  exists 


POrULAR    .  I  ML  'SEMENTS. 

in  St.  Giles's,  at  others  us  it  exists  in  Mayfair  or  Si  Jami 
We  demand  that  actors  and  actresses  ahall  give  as  the  besi  imita- 
tions they  can  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  me  t  daily  in  Hyde 
Park;  who  talk,  laugh,  and  flirt  together;  who  ud  un- 

make marriages;  who  go  to  Eurlingham;  who  dine  al  the  Orl< 
Ciub.     We  pretend  no  high  motive  in  all  this,  and  aim  al  do  p 
tic-alar  moral.     We  simply  wish  to  be  amused,  and  we  wish  also  to 
witness  what  we  call  a  mise-ensc&ne  so  perfect  thai  we  may  enjoy 
me  faint  illusion  into  the  bargain,     ajs  the  coats  and  dresses  of 
the  ladies  and  gentlemen  en  the  stage  are  made  by  the  same  tai; 
and  milliners  who  make  the  coats  and  dresses  of  the  ladi  ss  and  gen- 
men  in  society,  so  do  we  expect   thai    the   furniture    shall   he   an 
likeness  of  that  seen  in  the  drawing-rooms  of  t  id. 

If  old  English  decorations  and  Queen  Anne  architecture  are  the 
vogue  in  real  life,  we  must  have  them  on  the  stage.     There  must 
be  left  nothing  to  the  imagination,  and  unless  the  eye  and  ear  can 
immediately  see  it  all,  it  is  not  supposed  to  be  there.     The  m 
familiar  the  scene  the  better.     There  is  nothing  which  brings  down 
the  house  like  a  view  of  Waterloo  Bridge,  especially  if  a  hane 
cab  happens  to  be  going  over  it;  or  the  counterfeit  pi 
Hyde  Park  Corner  by  lamplight,  especially  if  Piccadilly  ha})] 
be  enlivened  by  the  gay  and  festive  presence  of  some  von. 
men  who  have  taken  too  much  wine,  whose  opera  hats  are  crusl      I 
in.  whose  white  ties  are  all  awry,  and  who  are  going  home  with  I 
milk.     Arcadia  may  be  all  very  well;  but  the  most  beautiful  glim] 
of  Arcadian  forests  and  streams  which  scenic  artist  ever  gave  would 
not  provoke  a  tenth  part  of  the  applause   that  a  clever  portrayal 
of  Richmond  Hill,  with  the  "Star  and  Garter"  in  the  immedj 
foreground,  and  Eel  Pie  Island  in  the  middle  distance,  n       r  tails 
to  elicit.     A  view  of  the  Bay  of  Naples,  with   Herculaneum   and 
Pompeii  visible,  would  be  all  very  well;  but  what  is  it   to   Brighton, 
with  the  green-and-gold  ironwork  of  the  Grand  Hotel? 

These  tastes  are  not  peculiar  to  the  play-going  public  or  exclu- 
sively gratified  on  the  stage.     Tin. -in.'  thing  may  be  witnessed  in 
much  of  our  pictorial  ail  and  in  most  of  our  popular  QOvela      Wh.it 
the  late  Mr.  Thomas  Robertson,  the  author  of  Society,   Cade,  and 
'  the  rest  of  what  are  known  as  the  "Prince  of  Wales'  dramas,"  was 

to  the   modern  drama.    Mi-.    Anthony   Trollope   is   to   cont  try 

\   romance.     The  novelist  must  follow  the  example  of  the  playwi 

and  give  us  life  as  it  is.      On  the   sta.u'e  the  hero  ;l,|. 

in  the  novel  the  young  lady  asks  her  lover  for 

consideration  in  •  department  of  int  Uectual  industry  or  activity 


554  ENGLAND. 

is  not  to  fly  too  high  for  the  public.  The  dramatist  may  write  his 
dramas  with  a  quill  which  comes  from  the  wing  of  the  angel  Ga- 
briel, but  if  he  writes  above  the  heads  of  his  patrons,  woe  be  to  him. 
The  romantic  and  historic  drama  has  given  place  to  the  "  cup  and 
saucer "  domestic  drama,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
public  taste  and  morals  are  much  the  worse  or  better  for  the  change. 
But  what  is  a  harmless  realism  among  the  higher  classes  may  con- 
ceivably become  a  very  dangerous  realism  if  gratified  in  the  case 
of  the  lower.  It  is  a  simple  historical  fact,  that  a  few  years  ago  a 
London  manager  *  was  actually  contemplating  the  production  of  the 
Ober  Ammergau  Passion  Play  upon  the  stage  of  his  theater,  and 
had  he  not  received  timehy  warning  from  the  responsible  authority 
the  experiment  would  certainly  have  been  made.  Again,  early  in  the 
month  of  December,  1875,  it  was  announced  on  a  series  of  yellow 
and  black  posters,  fixed  upon  every  available  vacant  space  in  the 
town  of  Sunderland,  that  a  startling  drama  of  real  life  was  to  be 
j)roduced,  founded  on  certain  incidents  in  the  life  of  Henry  Wain- 
wright,  who  was  then  lying  in  the  condemned  ceU  under  sentence 
of  death  for  the  murder  of  his  paramour!  The  first  act  was  to 
have  Broxbourne  Gardens  as  its  venue,  and  in  the  course  of  it  the 
audience  were  to  be  made  acquainted  with  "  the  first  meeting  be- 
tween Wainwright  and  his  victim;  the  arts  employed  by  men  about 
town ;  the  friendly  warning  disregarded."  Amongst  the  scenes 
which  followed  were  "high  jinks  in  the  Whitechapel  Counting 
House,"  a  "life  of  wild  dissipation,"  the  "murder,"  and  much 
else.  If  this  hideous  farrago  of  criminal  tableaux,  rendered  ar- 
ticulate with  criminal  speeches  and  vicious  sentiments,  had  been 
actually  given  to  the  public,  who  can  doubt  that  it  would  have 
exercised  a  directly  debasing  and  pernicious  influence  ?  The  pub- 
lic know  what  is  permitted,  but  not  what  is  prevented. 

Such  experiences  as  these  show  that  the  Licenser  of  Plays  has 
other  duties  to  perform  than  the  interdiction  of  clumsy  adaptations 
of  unwholesome  French  dramas,  or  obscene  French  farces.  There 
is  but  one  commandment  in  the  Decalogue  that  is  a  source  of  un- 
failing capital  to  the  Parisian  playwright.  The  same  sin,  implied 
or  expressed,  perpetrated  already,  or  with  events  apparently  leading 

*  There  is,  of  course,  no  reference  here  to  the  advertised  Tableaux  at  the 
"Westminster  Aquarium  in  1878.  The  interposition  of  authority  was  not  called 
for  in  this  instance;  the  Ober  Ammergau  peasants  never  having  accepted  any 
engagement  in  England,  and  the  representation  of  the  Tableaux  not  having 
been  announced  to  take  place  at  the  Eoyal  Aquarium  Theater — the  only  part 
of  the  building  under  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  jurisdiction. 


rOTULAR   AMUSEMENTS.  555 

up  to  its  perpetration,  is  ever  there.  His  ingenuity  is  devoted  to 
varying  the  conditions  of  the  offense,  inventing  nevi  combinations 
of  offenders,  placing  them  in  novel  situations,  and  illustrating  the 

Nemesis  which,  sooner   or   later,   overtakes  the   guilt}    in   «li\.  i 
shapes.     Sometimes  the  action  of  the  avenging  deitj  assumes  the 
form  of  laughter-moving  satire,  sometimes  of  overwhelming  tragedy. 
There  are  farcical  comedies  in  which*  the  unholy  conspirator  against 
the  peace  of  households  is  depleted  as  merely  ridiculous,  the  dupe 
of  his  own  villainy,  a  knave,  and,  as  events  turn  out,  a  fool  into  the 
bargain.     There  are,  on  the  other  hand,  comedies,  such  as  the  Sup- 
plice  dime  Femme  which  are  traversed  by  a  vein  of  very  tragic  pur- 
pose, and  which  display  the  consequence  of  matrimonial  perfidy  in 
the  agonizing  aspects  of  lifelong  and  irreparable  remorse.     Now 
these  dramas  stand  in  a  relation  to  French  audiences  and  to  French 
society  radically  different  from  that  wlhch  it  is  possible  they  should 
occupy    towards    English    audiences    and    English    society.      With 
scarcely  an  exception,  even  our  best  actors  and  actresses  lad 
finesse  and   the  lightness  of  touch  which  are   the   attributes,  in  a 
special  degree,  of  their  French  brethren  and  sisters.     T!u  .    a 
without  that  eminently  Parisian  art  of  swiftly  and  gracefully  glid- 
ing over  delicate  and  dangerous  ground.     Though  the  situations  in 
a  play  should  be  subordinate  to  the  moral,  the  moral  is  still  one 
thing  and  the  situations  another.     The  real  and  unavoidable  danger 
when  English  actors  are  intrusted  with  the  performance  of  a   play 
whose  spirit,  conception,  and  situation  are  thoroughly   French,  is 
that  they  should  exaggerate  the  situations  at  the   expense  of  i 
moral — should  bring  the  former  into  disproportionate  prominen 
and  should  dwarf  and  obscure  the  latter.     The  final  moral,   tV 
a  French  point  of  view,  may 'be  unexceptionable,  but   the  situa- 
tions are  worse  than  hazardous,   and,   acted   as   such  dramas   I 
likely  to  be  acted  in  England,  the  temptation  to  an  English  audi- 
ence to  fasten  on  the  situations  and  forget  the  moral  would 
irresistible. 

There  are  other  reasons  which  cause  dramas  thai  are  perfectly 
possible  and  not  glaringly  improper  in  France  to  be  wholly  una- 
daptable to  English  audiences.  If  the  sanctity  of  the  marri 
is  not  always  respected  in  England,  the  general  t.  rms  on  which  the 
sexes  are  associated  with  each  other  before  and  after  marriage  are 
entirely  different  on  the  two  sides  of  the  Channel.  In  Prance  flirta- 
tion is  supposed  to  be  the  common  successor  <4  marriag<  ;  in  "fin- 
gland  it  is  at  least  considered  theoretically  more  desirable  thai 
should  precede  the  ceremony.     A  very  considerable  proportion 


556  ENGLAND. 

the  English  novels  read  by  young  ladies  who  are  not  yet  brides — 
which  are  mainly  the  products  of  feminine  hands,  and  abound  in 
warmly-colored  love  passages — would  be  considered  quite  as  inap- 
propriate or  improper  for  a  French  maiden  as  the  polissonneries  of 
the  French  stage  are  for  an  English  maiden.  The  cavalier  servente, 
the  wife's  lover,  may  have  an  existence  in  England,  but  he  has  not 
a  definite  status  as  in  France,  and  the  adaptations  of  French  plays 
in  which  he  figures  to  the  English  stage  are  not  faithful  or  accept- 
able pictures  of  English  society.  Finally,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  institution  of  a  Divorce  Court  in  the  one  country,  and  the 
absence  of  such  an  institution  in  the  other,  will  cause  the  public  of 
each  to  regard  the  presentation  in  a  dramatic  shape  of  conjugal 
treason  and  traitors  with  very  different  sentiments.  The  published 
records  of  the  court  over  which  Sir  James  Hannen  presides  acquaint 
Englishmen  and  Englishwomen  with  the  misery  that  follows  sys- 
tematic breaches  of  what  is  not  in  this  country  a  sacrament,  but  a 
civil  contract,  in  all  its  vulgar  and  prosaic  hideousness.  Faithless- 
ness in  husbands  and  wives  is  not  in  England,  as  in  France,  merely 
a  moral  sin  to  be  satirized  bv  turning  the  laugh  against  the  be- 
trayer:  it  is  a  legal  offense,  and  it  admits  of  a  legal  remedy.  It  is 
surely  as  sorry  to  jest  with  the  iniquity  which  may  be  punished  with 
a  heavy  pecuniary  mulct,  and  a.  scandalous  publicity,  in  a  division 
of  a  High  Court  of  Justice,  as  with  the  fate  that  overtakes  an  ap- 
prentice who  dips  his  hand  into  his  master's  till,  or  the  scamp  who 
terminates  his  career  by  forging  a  friend's  name. 

If  the  general  English  public  were  able  to  protect  itself  in  these 
matters,  or  if  English  theatrical  managers  could  be  trusted  never  to 
take  advantage  of  its  defenselessness  and  folly,  then  Parliament 
might  be  petitioned  to  repeal  forthwith  the  Act  under  which  the 
Licenser  of  Plays  holds  his  office.  But  few,  if  any,  managers  suf- 
ficiently  bear  in  mind  that  many  pieces  which  have  succeeded  in 
Paris  have  not  been  exclusively,  or  even  mainly,  patronized  by  the 
French  middle  class,  but  by  the  floating  population' of  pleasure- 
seeking  foreigners,  of  whom  Paris  is  always  full.  Again,  theaters 
are  labelled  and  classified  in  Paris  to  a  degree  in  which  they  are 
not,  and  cannot  be,  in  London.  If  one  goes  to  the  Palais  Koyal,  to 
the  Bouffes,  the  Yarietes,  one  knows  in  each  case  precisely  what 
to  expect.  In  London,  on  the  other  hand,  the  audiences  in  aU  our 
theaters  are  mixed;  and  the  most  respectable  mother  and  father  of 
a  family  are  apt  to  assume  that  there  is  no  temple  of ,  the  drama  to 
which  they  may  not  safely  resort  with  children  and  friends.  Fur- 
ther, it  has  been  in  past  times  the  policy  of  French  Governments 


POPULAR    AMUSEMENTS.  557 

to  render  the  theater  a  place  of  distraction  from  politics  for  the 
French  people,  and  so  long  as  the  end  was  gained  the  means  em- 
ployed were  not  too  minutely  inquired  into.  The  specious  argu- 
ment which  is  sometimes  employed,  thai   if   a  censors!  the 

stage  is  desirable  a  censorship  of  the  press  also  would  at  l< 
justified,  admits  of  an  easy  and  conclusive  answer.     The  raison  d'i 
of  a  censorship  of  the  stage  in  countries  where  the  pr<  is  and  all 
other  forms  of  literary  publication  arc  absolutely  fr<  e      to  be  found 

in  the  essential  difference  between  what  is  read  and  \  repre- 

sented. The  Police  News  and  other  journals  of  thai  d  iption  . 
not  edifying-  sheets.  But  it  is  possible  that  then1  peru  al  does  no 
permanent  injury  to  some,  at  least,  of  their  patrons.  Imagine, 
however,  the  dramatic  representation  of  the  scenes  ami  incidents 
portrayed  in  an  illustrated  print  of  the  character  of  the  Police  News. 
The  peculiar  influence  of  dramatic  representations  d<  pends  upon 
the  contagious  sympathy  of  a  crowd.  The  effect  produced  upon  an 
individual  has  to  be  enlarged  and  intensified  indefinitely  before  any 
idea  can  be  arrived  at  as  to  the  nature  of  the  total  imp]  ession  upon 
the  aggregate  multitude.  The  wild  plaudits  of  the  collective  oc- 
cupants of  the  pit  and  gallery  come  to  the  ears  of  each  one 
present  with  a  force  that  is  exactly  proportioned  to  the  numerical 
total  of  the  audience  and  to  the  complete  volume  of  irresponsible 
voices. 

The  jurisdiction  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain  of  Her  Majesty's 
Household  for  the  time  being,  as  Licenser  of  the  metropolitan 
theaters,  and  of  all  new  stage-plays  intended  for  representation  at 
any  theater  in  Great  Britain,  is  a  curious  and  interesting  survival. 
It  is  sometimes  loosely  described  as  an  anomaly;  but  it  is  an  anom- 
aly only  in  the  sense  in  which  the  growth  and  permanence  of  our 
whole  constitutional  sysj-  m  is  an  anomaly.  Such  anomalies  pre- 
serve us  from  the  logic  and  the  falsehood  of  extren 
opposite  but  equally  op] nvssive  inquisitions  01'  a  jealous  1  am 

and  of  a  jealous  democracy.     In  France  the  dramatic  1  'up 

was  never  so  severe  as  when  the  censorship  was  formally  abolish*  d 
— thai  is,  during  the  Keign  of  Terror  under  the  Fia  iiblia 

countries  where  no  formal  censorship  exists,  the  u 
arbitrary  (and  not  always  incorruptible)  pi  by  no  means  an 

enviable  alternative.     !     I       land  the  unscrupulous  managers  who 
would  prefer  absolute  license,  tempered  by  occasional  police-ra 
are  probably  those  who  would  d<  >ir e  to  introduce  into  their  th 
the  entertainments  and  the  manners  of  music-halls  and  casino 
and  who,  therefore,  naturally  gravitate  1  land   Yard.     It   1 


558  ENGLAND. 

be  doubted  whether,  as  the  basis  of  government  becomes  more  and 
more  democratic,  the  supervision  of  public  entertainments  will  not 
become  more  rather  than  less  exacting  and  severe. 

Some  reason  for  this  assumption  may  be  found  in  the  historical 
antecedents  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  authority  over  theaters.  It 
is  altogether  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  Act  of  George  II.,  intro- 
duced and  passed  by  the  Ministry  of  Sir  Robert  "Walpole,  establish- 
ing a  censorship  of  dramatic  representations  and  placing  it  under 
the  Lord  Chamberlain,  was  the  beginning  of  that  great  officer  of 
State's  theatrical  jurisdiction.  The  truth  is,  that  before  the  great 
Puritan  Revolution,  which  closed  all  theaters  and  swept  many  of 
the  poor  players  into  the  armies  of  the  king,  the  two  or  three  dra- 
matic companies  that  existed  were  under  the  express  protection  of 
the  sovereign.  In  those  days  stage-players  were  looked  upon  as 
"  rogues  and  vagabonds,"  and  they  were  glad  enough  to  escape  the 
ignominy  of  outcasts  by  being  nominated  and  appointed  "  His  Maj- 
esty's Servants,"  and  provided  with  royal  liveries.  The  functions 
subsequently  intrusted  to  the  Lord  Chamberlain  were  in  those  days 
performed  by  the  Master  of  the  Revels,  who  was  the  examiner  of 
all  theatrical  entertainments.  After  the  Restoration  the  surviving 
players  of  the  Puritan  period,  and  their  successors,  were  glad  enough 
to  take  refuge  once  more  under  the  patronage  of  the  Court,  and  to 
be  numbered  again  among  "His  Majesty's  Servants."  The  Act  of 
•George  II.  (repealed  by  the  Act  6  and  7  Victoria)  was  nothing  more 
than  a  legislative  enactment  and  sanction  of  that  authority  which 
had  previously  belonged  to  the  royal  prerogative.  It  was  certainly 
no  disgrace  to  the  players  to  be  treated  as  one  of  the  liberal  pro- 
fessions, and  to  be  placed  like  the  Church,  the  Bar,  and  the  naval 
and  military  services,  under  the  control  of  a  great  officer  of  State. 
But  with  that  happy  adaptation  of  old  prerogative  to  modern  liberty 
which  characterizes  so  many  "  anomalous  "  English  institutions,  the 
supervision  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain  over  theaters  or  dramatic  rep- 
resentations is  really  exercised  by  a  deputy,  who  by  his  condition 
and  experience  as  a  man  of  the  world  and  by  his  sympathies  as  a 
man  of  liberal  education,  of  art,  of  "  letters,"  is  likely  to  exercise 
the  delicate  and  difficult  discretion  of  a  censor  (who  it  must  be  re- 
membered is  a  responsible  administrator  of  an  Act  of  Parliament) 
at  once  with  a  due  sense  of  the  close  relation  of  public  manners  to 
public  morals,  and  of  the  influence  of  dramatic  representations  on 
public  manners,  and  with  a  sensitive  regard  for  the  just  rights  and 
liberties  of  dramatic  literature  and  dramatic  art.  In  point  of  fact, 
neither  dramatic  literature  nor  dramatic  art  has  ever  had  cause  to 


POri  'LA  R    AMI  rSEMENTS. 

complain  of  an  authority  which  lias  been  fell  as  a  oensorship  only 
by  those  lawless  managers  who  would  turn  theaters  into  houa 
ill  fame.  Oddly  enough,  the  most  severe  of  censors  even  to  ab- 
surdity— was  himself  a  dramatic  author,  and  not  a  Bqueamish  one, 
George  Colman.  There  is  no  denying  thai  the  stage  in  tins  coun- 
try, quite  apart  from  foreign  influences,  has  never  quite  recov  I 
from  the  fanatical  hostility  of  Puritanism  and  from  the  Libertinism 
of  the  Restoration,  which  was  a  reaction  from  Puritanical  e 
It  is  the  business  of  our  dramatic  "censor"  in  these  days  to  guard 
it  alike  from  mere  fanaticism  and  from  its  own  besetting  sins  in  an 
opposite  direction.  And  on  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that  this  in- 
vidious responsibility  is  satisfactorily  fulfilled. 

The  abolition  of  a  dramatic  censorship  thus  gently  and  gener- 
ously exercised  would  almost  certainly  open  the  door  on  the  stage 
to  the  offensive  personalities  and  the  scarcely  veiled  sedition  which, 
as  matters  are,  can  not  be  kept  out  of  a  good  many  of  the  popular 
periodicals  of  the  day.     As  a  consequence,  the  theaters  might   be 
expected  to   become  the  scenes  of  riot  and   disturbance.     D< 
tives  in  disguise  would  be  quartered  about,  the  stage  would  fall  into 
disrepute,  and  English  liberty  would  be  in  real  danger  of  serious 
abridgment.     If  it  is  said  that  the  English  public  is  at  bottom  re- 
spectable, and  in  the  long  run  may  be  trusted  to  make  its  1 
bility  prevail,  the  answer  is  that  the  dramatic  censor   helps  these 
respectable  persons,  in  the  first  instance,  towards  a  result  thai  I 
might  only  achieve  with  difficulty  after  some  delay,  and  after  : 
good  taste  and  moral  sense  had  sustained  a  considerable  out, 
Such  an  officer  is  not  likely,  in  point  of  ethical  severity,  to  lie  much 
superior  to  the  general  standard  of  his  time.     A  Puritanic  censor 
of  plays  woidd  only  be  possible  when  Puritanism  was  the  r<  i 
nized  ruling  influence  of  the  day.     If  the  English  public  is — as  it 
undoubtedly   is — for  the   most  part  highly  respectable,   the   stage 
censor  reflects  their  respectability  and  the  good  sense  which  that 
respectability  generates;  and  in  doing  this,  he  may  do  also  not  a 
little  to  help  the  decent  many  to   resist   the  d<  spotism  whict 
indecent  few  might  not  be  sorry  to  establish. 

With   regard  to   some  J    comedies    which   have   been 

nounced  as  objectionable,  it  may  be  argued  that  it   is  a  mistake, 
even  on  high  moral  grounds,  to  fake  such  performances  to,, 
ously.     After  all,  a  theater  is  not  a  church  or  a  chapel.     As  long  as 
there  is  genuine  drollery  and  genuine  laughter  tin  re  is  not   i, 
harm  done.     Nothing  is  so  dull  as  indecency,  nothing  the  attrac- 
tions of  which  are  so  soon  exhausted.     But  the  dialogue  of  a  | 


560  ENGLAND. 

may  be  harmless,  and  yet  on  the  stage  it  may  be  rendered  vicious 
by  the  by-play,  business,  and  "  gag  "  of  vicious  actors.  Ever  since 
dramatic  art  has  existed,  the  comedy  of  manners  and  of  character 
has  abounded  in  intrigue,  as  tragedy  has  mainly  resorted  to  the 
collisions  between  passion  and  duty.  For  dramatic  purposes  the 
Decalogue  has  always  been  more  honored  in  the  breach  than 
the  observance.  Indeed,  if  the  Decalogue  were  alwaj's  universally 
observed,  the  occupation  of  both  stage  and  pulpit  would  be  gone. 
The  Church,  fortified  by  tremendous  sanctions,  rebukes  vice,  and 
scares  it  away  by  the  terrors  of  the  wrath  to  come.  The  play  catches 
the  conscience  of  an  audience  by  tragic  terror-  and  pity,  or  chas- 
tises vice  by  ridicule.  An  audience  of  men  and  women  of  the  world 
may  be  laughed  out  of  their  vices  at  the  theater;  they  can  not  be 
preached  out  of  them. 

As  regards  the  production  of  French  plays  upon  the  English 
stage,  it  is  a  delusion  to  suppose  that  more  than  a  very  limited  num- 
ber of  play-goers  in  London  know  enough  of  the  French  language 
genuinely  to  enjoy  them.  The  boxes  and  stalls  are  filled  by  an 
exceedingly  select  public,  while  the  pit  and  gallery  are  sparsely 
occupied  by  hairdressers  and  cooks.  The  occupants  of  the  former 
part  of  the  house  are  either  attracted  by  a  genuine  admiration  for 
French  histrionic  art,  or  by  the  instinct  of  a  prevailing  desire  to  be 
a  stranger  to  nothing  that  is  Parisian  and  French.  The  performers 
are  French,  the  language  employed  is  French;  and  if  the  Examiner 
of  Plays  licenses  in  the  original  language  a  farce  or  a  drama  which 
he  might  be  slow  to  sanction  in  English  adaptation,  he  has  right 
and  reason  on  his  side.  To  borrow  an  expression  from  the  domain 
of  international  law,  the  stage  censor  will  scarcely  err  if  he  gives 
French  plays  performed  in  London  a  kind  of  extra-territorial  privi- 
lege— if,  in  fact,  he  treats  the  stage  on  which  they  are  presented  as 
for  the  time  being  a  part  of  France  projected  by  accident  into  En- 
gland. At  the  close  of  these  observations  on  the  contemporary 
English  stage,  there  may  be  briefly  noticed  a  question  often  heard 
among  play-goers — Is  a  revival  of  Shakespearian  dramas  in  England 
more  probable  than  a  revival  of  the  classic  drama  in  France?  With 
less  hesitation  than  reluctance  we  must  candidly  confess  our  belief 
that  it  is  not.  All  those  existing  conditions  of  the  stage  and  of 
society  to  which  reference  has  been  made  in  this  chapter  point  to 
one  conclusion,  which  a  flash  of  fashionable  enthusiasm  for  a  single 
actor  of  originality  and  distinction,  whose  principal  and  most 
popular  successes  have  been  won  in  modern  realistic  drama  and 
in  modern  comedy,  confirms  rather  than  contradicts.     The  more 


i 


P01 Y  7.  A  R    AMI  -SEMEXTS. 

Shakespeare's  plays  are  read,  the  lea  .  perhaps,  will  they  be  ,, 

ranted     An  audience  sufficiently  cultivated  to  enjoj   the  plays 

as  literature,   to   taste   the   quality   of   the    poet's    1  ,",,1 

/  the  subtlety  of  his  thought,  will  be  proportionately   1.  «ed 

to  tolerate    the  personation  of   all  but   one   or   two    ,  iu 

the  piece  by  actors  such  as  Hamlet  describes  iu  his  advice  to  the 

players. 


CHAPTER   XXX. 

PROFESSIONAL    ENGLAND. 

General  View  of  English  Professions — Civil  Engineering — The  Bar:  Qualifica- 
tions for  Success — Money  Prizes  of  Bar — Tendencies  of  the  Time  reflected 
in  English  Professional  Life — New  Professions  called  into  Existence — 
How  Science,  Commerce,  Art,  Literature,  have  each  enlarged  the  Area 
of  English  Professional  Life — Schoolmastering  as  a  Profession — Opportu- 
nities of  Scientific  Teaching — Manual  v.  Intellectual  Occupation — The 
Medical  Profession — The  Country  Doctor — General  Practitioners  and  Pure 
Physicians — Income  of  London  Medical  Men — Devotion  of  Medical  Men 
to  Scientific  Study — Progress  of  Medicine  in  England — Politics  as  a  Pro- 
fession— Necessity  of  Money — The  Diplomatic  Profession — The  Foreign 
Office — The  Army — Its  Popularity:  Growth  of  the  Professional  Soldier — ■ 
Effect  of  Abolishing  Purchase — Mess  Expenses. 

IT  is  witli  English  professions  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century  as  it  is  with  the  various  other  aspects  of  our  national 
life  which  have  been  passed  successively  in  review.  One  is  con- 
fronted on  the  one  hand  by  the  manifest  increase  of  all  that  is 
comprised  under  the  head  of  organization,  and  on  the  other  by 
those  signs  of  flux  and  movement  which  indicate  that  the  future 
and  final  development  of  professional  England  is  as  yet  undecided. 
To  the  former  of  these  categories  may  be  referred  the  machinery  of 
preliminary  tests  and  qualifying  examinations;  to  the  latter,  the  in- 
distinctness of  the  demarkating  line  between  pursuits  and  trades 
on  the  one  hand,  and  what  are  sj>ecifically  styled  professions  on  the 
other.  In  all  the  occupations  of  modern  life  there  is  an  increasing 
demand  for  stringent  guarantees  of  efficiency.  Physicians  and  sur- 
geons, barristers  and  solicitors,  soldiers  and  sailors,  are  each  of  them 
j  called  upon  to  furnish  strong  prima  facie  proof  of  fitness  for  their 
career  before  they  are  able  even  in  name  to  embark  upon  it.  If  to 
these  we  add  clergymen,  we  shall  have  enumerated  the  chief  tradi- 
tional 'departments  of  English  professional  life.  Yet  what  nearly 
innumerable  and  often  anonymous  varieties  of  honorable  and  prof- 
itable occupations  will  there  not  be  left  behind  ?  Though  in  this 
chapter  it  will  be  necessary  to  dwell  almost  exclusively  upon  the 


FK01.  ENGLAND, 

conventional  professional  divisions,  it   would  be  an  unpardonable 
omission  to  ignore  the  fact  thai  the  limit  separating  the  mechanioal 
industry  Erom  the  profession  seems  verj  often  purelj  arbitrary. 
At  the  head  of  all  the  new   professions  must  be  placed  thai 

/  the  civil  engineer.     The  calling  is  pre-eminently  thai  created  bj 
mosl  distinctively  characteristic  achievements  and  aspiratii  the 

age,  while  it  opens  up  a  vista  of  rich  rewards  to  those  who  follov 
with   the  success  which  Bpecial  aptitude  and  industry  command. 
There  is  also  reason  to  believe   thai    the    profession  of  the   civil 
engineer  is  one  which  appeals  with  peculiar  torn'  to  the  ima 
nation  and  ambition  of  the  youth  of  the  day.     It  is  the  pioneei 
progress  and  civilizati  >n,  moral  and  material  all  the  world  ovei 
gratifies  that  adventurous  instinct  which  is  the  heritage  of  the  En- 
glish race.     The   civil   engineer  who   spans  rocky  defiles,  pier< 
mountains,  unites  continents,  ami  by  d<  3ij  oing  new  Bchemes  of  rail- 
way and  telegraphic  extension  annihilates  space  and  tune,  is  the 
modern  representative  of  the  navigator  of  the  Elizabethan  era 
the   Hawkinses.   Raleighs,  Drakes,  and   Davises,  who   sailed   ■• 
remote  seas  in  quest  of  new  lands  and  fresh   enemies  to  subjugate. 
The  head  master  ^i  a  Large  public  school  recently  observed  to  I 
present  writer  that  three  out  of  every  four  of  his  pupils  would 
polled,  declare  for  engineering.     In  other  directions,  too.  the  ad- 
vance of  science  has  greatly  enlarged  the  horizon  of  English  pi-' 
sional  life.     Scientific  farming  is  surely  entitled  to  rank  as  a  pro! 
sion.     And   how  is  one   correctly  to  speak  of  the  whole   rao 
scientific  specialists  if  not  as  members  of  a  profession?     Experts  in 
naval  architecture,  chemists,  geologists,  and  oth<  rs,  have  all  in  real- 

!  ity  as  definite  a  profession  as  the  medical  man.  the  lawyer,  or  the 
divine.  Every  department  of  skilled  industry,  mechanical  or  intel- 
lectual,   has    annexed  to    if,    so    to    speak,    a    considerable    specialist 

business  of  its  own.     The  development  of  commerce  has  been  the 
opportunity  for  creating  a  hosl  of  occupations,  some  of  which  have 
been  glanced  at  in  preceding  chapters.     Art   has  proved    -car. 
less  productive  in  its  way  than  science  and  commerce.     Ther< 
not  only  more  work  fox  painters  of  creative  genius  than  ever,  bu1 
for  a  class  of  artists  who  nev<  bed  before     decorators  and 

signers  of  all  kin. Is  and  in  all  materials  In  literature  the  aame 
movement  has,  or  will  have  Boon,  be<  d  experienced,  and  journalism 
has  certainly  acquired  a  true  professional  status. 

But  though  the  exigencies  of  lern  life,  co-operating  with  the 

principle  <>f  the  subdivision  of  labor,  have  multiplied  prof<  -ion-  In 
England,  they  have  not  multiplied  them  in  such  number  a,  to  i 


554  ENGLAND. 

vide  sufficient  occupation  for  the  sons  of  English  parents.  The  op- 
portunities of  an  empire  established  in  each  of  the  four  quarters  of 
the  globe  are  found  too  few,  or  not  remunerative  enough,  for  Brit- 
ish lads  who  have  to  make  their  own  way  in  life,  and  who  have  small 
capital  on  which  to  commence.  Success  in  the  learned  professions 
is  denied  to  mediocrities.  The  navy  requires  strong  interest,  and 
the  army  a  competence.  If  the  developments  of  British  commerce 
have  created  a  host  of  new  and  lucrative  callings,  there  are  more 
candidates  already  than  work  can  be  found  for,  while  the  peculiar 
aptitudes  which  the  occupation  demands  are  not  always  forthcoming. 
The  Bar  means  starvation  arid  idleness  to  the  majority  of  those  who 
are  "  called."  The  Civil  Service  is  underpaid,  and  the  meanest  posi- 
tion in  it  is  only  to  be  won  after  success  in  an  examination  sufficient- 
ly difficult  to  act  as  a  formidable  barrier.  The  Church  offers  small 
inducement  for  the  ambitious  aspirant,  and  the  profession  of  the 
schoolmaster  is  already  overstocked. 

These  are  the  complaints  which  one  hears,  and  is  likely  for  some 
while  to  come  to  hear,  on  every  side.  The  professions  which  nat- 
urally suggest  themselves  to  the  two  thousand  young  men  who 
annually  take  their  degrees  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  a  majority 
of  whom  are  dependent  for  their  livelihood  on  their  own  exertions, 
are  the  Bar,  the  Church,  education,  or,  possibly,  civil  engineering. 
If  high  academic  honors  have  been  taken  by  the  newly-fledged  grad- 
uate, his  path  is  tolerably  clear.  He  will,  in  all  probability,  win  a 
fellowship,  which  if  not  tenable  for  life,  will  support  him  for  a  cer- 
tain number  of  years  while  he  is  making  a  start.  He  may  either 
attempt  to  live  on  the  stipend  attached  to  this  distinction,  or  he 
may,  residing  in  the  university,  supplement  his  income  with  work 
done  in  his  college  as  fellow  and  tutor,  or  take  private  pupils,  or  he 
may  accept  a  position  as  schoolmaster;  or  he  may  go  to  London, 
install  himself  in  chambers,  and  woo  success  at  the  Bar.  If  he  elects 
the  last  he  will  not  necessarily  find  his  scholastic  honors  of  any 
direct  assistance  to  him.  Clients  will  not  come,  nor  will  solicitors 
trust  him,  more  readily  because  he  is  a  double  first,  an  Ireland 
Scholar,  a  Senior  Classic,  or  a  Chancellor's  Medallist.  The  chances 
are,  it  will  be  a  more  appreciable  advantage  to  him  to  have  distin- 
guished himself  in  the  cricket  field,  on  the  river,  or  in  the  racket- 
court.  For  one  attorney  who  recognizes  that  he  is  a  fellow  of  his 
college,  and  the  most  accomplished  scholar  of  his  year,  half  a  dozen 
will  hasten  to  identify  him  with  the  famous  stroke  in  the  university 
eight,  or  the  irresistible  bowler  who  took  all  the  wickets  of  the  rival 
academic  team  at  Lord's. 


PROFESSIONAL  D. 

Success  at  the  Bar  depends  on  a  combination  of  cironmstani 
and  on  a  variety  of  gifts,  physical  quite  as  much  us  mental  A  good 
presence,  an  agreeable  manner,  are  as  valuable  as  the  powerful,  bui 
slowly  moving  intellect  In  common  law,  plausibility,  aplomb,  and 
ignorance  of  what  timidity  or  nervousness  mean  arc  indispensable. 
In  addition  to  this,  there  should  be,  if  possible,  seme  connection 
with  a  few  influential  solicitors,  or  the  opportunity  of  establish^ 
such,  and  then  if  most  of  these  conditions  arc  forthcoming,  there 
■will  be  the  certainty  of  a  moderate  success  The  personnel  of  En- 
glish lawyers  is  gradually  experiencing  a  change.  The  examinatii 
that  now  precede  the  call  to  the  Bar  insure  n> >t  only  some  degree 
of  general  culture,  hut  a  fair  amount  of  legal  knowledge.  Hence 
no  lawyer  who  is  a  barrister  can  he  as  in  (he  old  days,  when  noth- 
ing beyond  attendance  at  the  chambers  <>!'  a  pleader  or  counsel  was 
required — entirely  ignorant  of  law.  The  university  graduate  is  ab- 
solved from  the  necessity  of  submitting  himself  to  those  merely  edu- 
cational tests,  which  are  imposed  in  the  case  of  other  candidal 
many  of  whom  are  the  sons  or  brothers  of  solicitors,  while  some 
have  been  solicitors  themselves.  Even  the  university  graduate  who 
has  taken  high  honors  occasionally  recognizes  the  expediency  of 
acquiring  some  purely  technical  education  by  apprenticing  him»  If 
to  a  firm  of  solicitors  before  he  addresses  himself  to  the  business  of 
the  barrister.  Hence  the  Bar  is  much  less  of  a  professional  lounge 
than  formerly.  There  are  fewer  idlers  within  the  precincts  of  the 
Inns  of  Court,  and  most  of  the  young  gentlemen  who  keep  thi  ix 
terms  intend  to  work,  and  to  win  every  prize  which  the  profession 
affords. 

The  Law  List  for  1S70  shows  that  there  are  or  there  were  5,000 
barristers;  and  a  writer  in  a  magazine,*  placing  in  juxtaposition 
with  these  figures  several  other  facts  and  statistics,  draws  some  in- 
teresting conclusions.  Estimating  the  total  of  fees  paid  in  the  High 
Court  of  Justice  and  the  different  Courts  of  Quarter  Sessions  for  the 
year  1878  at  £338,200,  and  dividing  this  sum  by  the  number  of  bar- 
risters whose  names  are  in  the  Law  List,  the  maguzinist  arrive  | 
an  average  income  for  each  of  £68.  Adding  to  this  sum  the  t.  •  - 
paid  in  County  Courts  for  Indian,  colonial,  and  Scotch  appeals,  and 
by  law  students  to  tutors,  the  the  total  of  revenue 

to  average  £100  a  head.     Hut.  he  •  :.    expenditure  on  the 

necessities  of  life  or  of  the  ;  cannol  be  !■ 

than  £187  a  year.     Hen-,   he  is  1,  fl  with  a  d  N  m  the 

*  The  QenUeman'a    ■  i  i  e  Bar  a  '     .   1879. 


51)6  ENGLAND. 

money  prizes  of  the  profession — the  Lord  Chancellorship,  the  other 
law  officers  of  the  Crown,  the  judges,  &c. — are  fixed  in  round  num- 
bers at  £500,000,  which  yields  another  £100  a  year  to  each  of  the 
five  thousand  candidates.  This  is  an  interesting  and  ingenious 
speculation,  but  not  one  of  much  practical  value.  It  does,  however, 
circumstantially  suggest  the  undoubted  fact  that  the  prizes  of  the 
Bar  are  not  many  in  number.  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that,  such 
as  they  are,  they  are  distributed  among  comparatively  few  compet- 
itors. Here,  as  elsewhere,  honors  and  the  rewards  of  business  have 
a  tendency  to  concentrate  themselves  in  the  hands  of  a  small  minor- 
ity. One  success  brings  another,  and  the  prosperous  barrister  has 
no  sooner  enough  to  do  than  he  has  too  much.  Generally  it  may 
be  said  that  if  a  young  man  makes  up  his  mind  to  succeed  at  the 
Bar,  he  must  see  his  way  to  being  something  of  a  specialist.  Let 
him  master  some  particular  department  or  branch  of  law,  be  known 
as  an  expert  in  a  certain  sort  of  cases,  and  he  will  have  an  infinitely 
better  chance  than  if  he  takes  his  stand  simply  upon  the  basis  of 
general  utility. 

In  a  measure  this  remark  is  equally  true  of  all  professions  at  the 
present  time.  Let  us  take  the  case  of  the  university  graduate,  in 
fair,  but  not  in  the  highest  honors,  who  is  thrown  upon  the  world, 
with  a  few  college  debts,  and  fewer  pounds  in  his  pocket.  Unless 
he  goes  into  the  Church,  or  wins  a  berth  in  the  Civil  Service,  or 
finds  some  chance  opening,  such  as  a  secretaryship,  a  private  tutor- 
ship, or  makes  his  mark  on  the  press,  there  is  but  one  thing  he  can 
do  if  he  is  to  be  a  self-supporting  institution;  he  must  adopt  the  pro- 
fession of  schoolmaster.  Of  the  young  men  who  have  gone  through 
an  academic  course,  without  discredit  but  without  luster,  the  great 
majority  become  curates,  or  schoolmasters,  or  emigrants.  The  mere 
university  degree,  even  when  accompanied  by  moderate  honors,  is 
becoming  a  drug  in  the  market.  As  regards  emigration,  experience 
seems  to  show  that  a  young  man  who  makes  his  home  in  one  of  the 
great  British  colonies,  may  do  fairly  well  upon  either  of  two  assump- 
tions— that  he  has  a  certain  amount  of  capital,  between  £500  and 
£1,000,  to  start  him,  that  he  is  willing  to  hum  his  hand  to  any  thing, 
and  that  one  hour  he  can  teach  boys  ciphering,  and  writing,  and 
Latin  grammar,  and  the  next  be  making  himself  generally  useful. 
If  he  elects  to  be  a  schoolmaster  in  England,  he  may  indeed  ulti- 
mately attain  wealth,  but  that  will  not  be  as  schoolmaster,  but  as 
keeper  of  a  school  boarding-house.  Even  the  pedagogic  career  no 
Linger  presents  all  its  former  opportunities.  Of  course  the  impetus 
given  in  the  last  few  years  to  education  has  resulted  in  a  greater 


PROFESSION.  I !.    ENGL  .  \ND. 

demand  for  schoolmasters.     Bui  th<  q  while  there  is  a] 
ili, in  ever,  the  material  wanted  is  no!  always  thai  which  I  I  and 

Cambridge  supply,     The  demand  for  the  instruments  of  scienti 
instruction  is  increasingly  greater  than  thai  for  the  instruments  of 
literary  instruction 

If  the  problem  of  providing  employmenl  for  a  portion  even  of 
the  vasl   multitude  which  now  seeks  it.  too  often  in  vain,  is  to  be 
ily  solved,  the  duty,  of  sacrificing  personal  taste  and  prej- 
udice  to   proved  necessity  cannot  be  too  peremptorily    enforced. 
I?i  many  quarters  it  is  already  recognized.     Amongst  the  eligible 
cupations  for  younger  sous  of  great   noblemen  are  now  recog- 

ed  not  only  commissions  in  the  army  and  navy,  Government  ap- 
pointments, stipendiary  magistracies  and  the  like,  bul  positions  in 
mercantile  and  trading  houses,  sheep  fanning,  ordinary  Canning, 
plantations  in  the  colonies,  India,  and  America.  When  dukes  are 
willing  to  apprentice  the  cadets  Of  their  houses  to  merchants  and  to 
stock-brokers,  an  example  has  been  set  which  it  is  well  should  be 
extensively  followed.  The  crowds  of  young  men  who  now  sigh  for 
gentlemanlike  employment,  and  despair  querulously  because  it  is 
not  forthcoming,  will  have  to  reconcile  themselves  to  a  perceptible 
descent  in  the  social  scale.  The  gospel  of  leveling  up  has  been 
proclaimed  up  to  the  point  at  which  a  reaction  against  its  pivc<  pts 
is  unavoidable.  It  has  done  good  in  its  way,  and  lias  disseminated 
broadcast  the  leaven  of  a  healthy  and  stimulating  ambition.  I 
long  we  are  destined  to  witness  a  new  social  movement  It  will  be 
felt  that  the  practical  knowledge  of  some  specific  trade  is  a  better 
preventive  against  want,  poverty,  and  failure,  than  a  vague  knowl- 
edge of  clerkly  requirements  and  a  general  adaptability  for  clerkly 
duties.  Lads  who  now  seek  to  live  at  the  desk  may  succeed  in 
securing  for  themselves  the  means  of  living  at  the  bench  and  in 
the  engine-room;  and  signs  arc  now  visible  thai  in  a  few  years 
hence  no  social  stigma  will  be  considi  red  to  read  upon  those  who 
have  boldly  accepted  the  change.  Yet  even  then  it  is  not  possible 
to  forecast  the  future  without  some  apprehensions.  The  depr< 
sion  in  trade  is  naturally  making  its  influence  felt  with  sini  iroe 

in  the  domains  of  industry.  Parents  who  would  have  been,  in  nor- 
mal seasons,  only  too  grateful  for  such  a  chance,  hesitate  to  send 
their  sons  into  the  offices  of  Manchester  or  Liverpool  merchants  be- 
cause the  conditions  of  business  are  bad,  and  the  prosped  -  of  future 
success  are  not  encouraging. 

In  the  case  of  the  medicd  profession,  there  m  i\  be  Been  evid< 
of  the  same  desire  to  guarantee  the  efficiency 


568  ENGLAND. 


at  the  bar  and  in  other  callings.  But  the  number  of  those  doctors 
i  who  make  really  large  incomes  is  comparatively  small.  We  hear  of 
the  successes,  but  we  do  not  hear  of  the  failures;  and  not  merely  in 
the  provinces,  but  in  London  there  are  a  great  number  of  practi- 
tioners who  can  scarcely  contrive  to  support  themselves  and  families. 
The  life  of  the  country  doctor  is  exceedingly  trying  to  the  system 
even  of  a  strong  man;  he  is  liable  to  be  up  at  aU  hours  of  the  night, 
performs  long  journeys  in  the  most  inclement  weather,  receives  poor 
fees,  and  these  not  always  paid  with  regularity  or  certainty.  The 
general  practitioner,  whether  in  London  or  elsewhere,  is  the  lineal 
successor  of  the  apothecary,  who  in  former  days  was  resorted  to  in 
the  case  of  minor  ailments,  and  who  prescribed  and  sent  out  medi- 
cines. This  practitioner  can  sue  for  his  fees  in  a  court  of  law.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  fellows  and  members  of  the  Royal  College  of 
Physicians  are  prohibited  by  the  by-laws  of  the  college,  confirmed 
by  recent  Act  of  Parliament,  from  recovering  fees  by  legal  process. 
They  are  thus  placed  upon  the  same  footing  as  barristers,  who  nmst 
receive  their  honorarium  when  the  professional  service  is  rendered, 
or  run  the  risk  of  losing  it  altogether.  This  is  the  most  important 
distinction  between  the  general  practitioner,  who  very  often  is  a 
Doctor  of  Medicine  of  a  Scotch  or  Irish  university,  and  the  pure 
\  physician  or  F.R.C.P.  The  last  honor  is  reserved  for  those  who, 
after  having  shown  themselves  conspicuous  in  the  science  or  prac- 
tice of  medicine  as  members  of  the  College  of  Physicians,  are  after 
four  years  membership  nominated  by  the  council,  and  subsequently 
balloted  for  by  the  fellows  of  the  college  generally.  The  average 
medical  man  in  London  can  make  an  income  of  £1,000  to  £2,000  a 
I  year;  the  more  distinguished,  from  £5,000  to  £12,000.  Incomes 
above  this  are  very  rare,  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  is  literally 
not  the  time  in  which  to  do  the  extra  work.  As  in  Germany,  so  in 
England,  the  fees  charged  for  surgical  operations  are  small  in  com- 
parison with  those  current  in  America  and  Paris.  Of  the  generous 
and  disinterested  attention  of  many  doctors  to  their  patients  at  large 
the  public  knows  something,  but  is,  perhaps,  less  acquainted  with 
their  devotion  to  science.  A  curious  instance  of  this  may  be  men- 
tioned which  occurred  not  long  ago  in  London.  There  arrived  one 
day  in  the  English  capital  from  France  a  medical  man  who  had  been 
dedicating  his  energies  exclusively  to  the  study  of  physiology.  Sud- 
denly he  attracted  notice,  and  was  astonished  to  find  patients  flock- 
ing to  consult  him  on  nerve  diseases;  very  shortly  he  was  in  pos- 
session of  a  practice  of  more  than  £5,000  a  year.  He  told  his 
professional  friends  he  should  completely  surrender  it  as  soon  as 


MOFESSh IV.  1 1.    t:.\\ ,7  .  / ,\7). 

he  could  secure  an  annuity  of  £300  a  year.     It  was  noi  beli< 
that  ho  would  persevere  in  his  resolyej  he  did  persevere,  howevi 
and  when  he  had  realized  his  modest  ambition  went  bo  JLmerica  to 

pursue  his  old  studies,  and  devoted  hims 

One  of  tlic  most  important  and  remarkable  advances  in  mod 
surgical  practice  is  the  revolution  thai  has  been  effected  by  the  in- 

:  troduction  of  the  antiseptic  method  of  treating  wounds,  in  the 
medical  profession,  as  in  others,  th  re  is  always  a  Btrong  cc. 
tive  vein,  and  there  are  many  surgeons  who  insist  that  this  p] 
has  not  been  the  exclusive  cause  of  the  results  attributed  to  it.  But 
the  fact  that  the  antiseptic  method  gains  ground  daily  in  all  coun- 
tries, bein  ■•rally  adopted  in  England,  universally  in  Scotland, 
ahnost  universally  in  Germany,  to  a  large  extent  in  America,  and 
gradually  in  France,  is  a  sufficient  testimony  to  its  intrinsic  merits. 
Nor  is  it  only  danger  to  the  patient  which  is  diminished  by  this 
method.  The  doctor  himself  is  secured  against  many  perils  to 
which  he  was  previously  exposed.  The  perils  under  which  the 
medical  man  pursues  his  tasks  are  infinitely  greater  than  are  gen- 
erally imagined.  Many  young  doctors  are  stricken  down  on  the 
threshold  of  life  in  the  fever-wards  of  hospitals.  The  late  Dr. 
Charles  Murchison  was  repeatedly  at  death's  door  before  he  could 
pursue  his  fever  studies  without  imminent  risk  of  being  infected  by 
the  disease.  He  lost  two  children  from  the  effects  of  a  malady  which 
he  had  twice  brought  home.  A  distinguished  Scotch  physician,  Sir 
Robert  Christison  of  Edinburgh,  approaching,  in  1879,  his  ninetieth 
year,  suffers  from  recurrent  attacks  of  fever,  cone  qn  nl  on  his  ■ 
posure  to  morbid  iniluences  in  the  exercise  of  his  professional  duties. 
"Whether  under  fire  on  the  battle-field,  assisting  the  wounded,  or  in 
the  not  less  deadly  arena  of  disease,  statistics  show  with  what  ti  lel- 
ity  the  lives  of  medical  men  are  spent  in  the  service  of  mankind. 
According  to  the  returns  of  the  Registrar-General  the  mortality 
of  medical  officers  is  nearly  twenty  per  cent,  higher  than  that  of 
combatant  officers  of  the  same  age. 

Politics,  diplomacy,  and.  to  a  certain  extent,  the  army,  are  on 

,    mental  professions;  not  money-making,  but  money-spendis 
Successful  politicians  in  England  are  seldom  needy  men.     Neither 
Lord  Beaconsfield  nor  Mr.  Gladstone  have  risen  From  poverty  or 
obscurity,  or  started  in  life  absolutely   devoid  of  the  advanta 
enjoyed  by  the  rivals  and  contemporaries  whom  they1  ! 

or  distanced.     The  constituencies  in   1874   elected  as  their  repi 
sentatives  the  rich)  in  the  world,  and  the  II 

Commons  gave  its  confidence  to  a  Cabinet  of  eminently  rich  men. 


570  ENGLAND. 

Even  in  the  two  Ministerial  whips  it  had  country  gentlemen  of 
large  landed  estate  and  big  rental.  The  instances  in  this  century 
of  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  rising  to  position  and  influ- 
ence who  did  not  belong  to  one  of  the  two  aristocracies — the  aris- 
tocracy of  birth  or  wealth — or  who  did  not  contract  an  alliance  with 
one  of  these  so  closely  that  he  became  identified  with  it,  are  rare 

1  exceptions.  There  are,  certainly,  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons who  have  no  regular  income  of  their  own,  no  estate,  no  re- 
munerative profession.  But  they  make  something  out  of  director- 
ships, and  they  occasionally  pick  up  a  windfall  in  the  City.  These 
have  seldom  any  very  lofty  ambitions.  They  do  not  mistake  them- 
selves for  heaven-born  statesmen,  and  they  are  quite  satisfied  if 
they  have  enough  to  pay  for  their  subscription  to  the  best  club  in 
London,  and  the  other  necessities  or  luxuries  of  life.  There  is  also 
in  the  House  of  Commons  a  large  allowance  of  professional  men 
who  would  be  described  as  working  for  their  daily  bread.  But 
what  does  this  really  mean  ?  The  professional  men  alluded  to  are 
either  lawyers  of  large  practice  or  persons  engaged  in  commerce. 
In  the  former  case  they  are  for  the  most  part  in  the  position  of 
being  able  to  say  adieu  to  their  clients  to-morrow  without  any  fear 
of  starvation;  in  the  latter,  their  business  manages  itself — they  have 
deputies  and  agents  in  whom  they  can  thoroughly  trust.  If  any 
supervision  is  needed  it  is  of  the  least  possible  kind,  and  then'  share 
of  work  is  confined  to  pocketing  a  due  proportion  of  profits.     Bar- 

/  risters  go  into  the  House  for  a  definite  reason.  A  Parliamentary 
seat,  if  they  can  get  it,  is  a  distinct  advertisement.  Even  then  it 
is  a  costly  mode  of  appeal  to  litigants  and  attorneys.  A  country 
gentleman  with  an  estate  of  £5,000  a  year,  a  family,  and  a  town 
house,  who  goes  into  the  House  of  Commons  determined  to  make 
jDolitics  a  study,  finds  it  not  too  easy  to  keep  out  of  debt.  A  bar- 
rister whose  fees  do  not  amount  to  more  than  £3,000  per  annum 
will  probably  find,  if  he  only  thinks  about  augmenting  his  business, 
that  he  is  without  any  adequate  return  for' his  expenditure  of  time 
and  money.  A  parliamentary  career  is  and  will  remain  open  to 
talent;  but  only  on  condition  that  talent  has  the  bahast  of  wealth. 
Hard  as  this  may  seem,  in  individual  cases  there  is  a  sound  reason 
for  it,  and  it  works  well  and  fairly  in  the  long  run.  When  the  late 
Duke  of  Marlborough — then  Marquis  of  Blandford — brought  for- 
ward his  Reform  Bill,  as  a  sort  of  ballon  d'essai,  he  proposed  that 
members  of  Parliament  should  be  paid,  and  the  proposal  was 
rightly  characterized  as  democratic  in  its  tendencies.  So  long  as 
poverty  continues  to  be  a  political  disqualification,  there  will  be 


PROFESSIONAL    ENGLAND.  671 

generally  insured  integrity  and  independence.  If  the  House 
Commons  was  a  place  for  making  money  rather  than  spending 
it,  it  would  at  once  be  degraded  in  the  national  opinion.  Thus  it  ia 
that  though,  of  those  who  succeed  in  the  Bouse  of  CommonB,  Borne 
have  more  money  and  Borne  less,  the  assistance  of  monej  has  been 
indispensable,  and  lias  been  forthcoming  to  almost  all. 

Passing  from  politics  to  diplomacy  we  conic  to  whal  is  virtually 
another  unpaid  profession.     No  sensible  man  would  think  of  Bend- 

I  ing  his  son  into  it  unless  he  was  prepared  to  allow  him  al  the  verj 
least  four  or  five  hundred  a  year,  an  allowance  not  to  be  withdrawn 
or  reduced  when  he  was  promoted  to  the  position  of  third  secret 
with  a  salary  of  £150,  hut  to  continue  throughout  bis  career,  and  to 
be  secured  to  him  after  his  parents'  death.  Such  a  profession, 
though  diplomatists  may  be  the  pets  of  society,  can  never  he  a 
really  popular  one.  With  certain  qualifications  the  same  remarks 
are  true  of  the  Foreign  Office.  The  principle  of  competition  does 
indeed  to  a  limited  extent  exist  at  the  Foreign  Office — ten  candi- 
dates being  usually  nominated  to  one  vacancy.  The  severity  of  the 
examinations  depends  not  so  much  on  the  number  as  on  the  ac- 
quirements of  those  who  compete  in  it.  Tims  in  the  competition 
for  the  Indian  Civil  Service,  it  is  an  exception  if  there  are  m 
than  ninety  lads  whose  ability  and  knowledge  are  entitled  to  con- 
sideration. The  vacancies  are  from  thirty-live  to  forty;  and  it  fol- 
lows that  the  chances  are  less  than  three  to  one  against  each  of 
those  who  are  really  in  the  running.     Now  in  the  1  Office 

competitions  there  are  no  men  of  straw.  Not  only  lias  the  patron- 
age list  by  no  means  invariably  been  adhered  to,  but  3pecial  invita- 
tions have  been  sent  to  certain  famous  heads  of  houses  at  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  to  BUggest  promising  candidates.      Nor  is  ■  t  i 

see  how  this  state  of  things  is  to  be  remedied.     Make  the  i  lamina- 
tions for  the  Diplomatic  Service  competitive,  and  it  is  cert 
some  at  least  of  those  personally  and  socially  qualified  in  a  1 

/  degree  will  be  excluded.  For  instance,  young  men  who  have  bei  ti 
educated  in  the  traditions  and  atmosphere  of  diplomacy  from 
fancy,  the  sons,  it  may  be,  of  ambassadors  or  charges  d'affaires,  who 
have  friendships  and  connections  in  every  European  capital,  to 
whom  it  is  a  second  nature  socially  to  conciliate  and  correctly  to  in- 
terpret public  feeling  and  political  intention,  would  often  be  hope- 
lessly defeated  in  a  general  competitive  examination.     Again,  - 

)  posing  the  Foreign  Office  were  to  open  u^  doors  to  all  comers, 
means  might,  conceivably,  be  taken  to  withdraw  with  one  hand 
what  was  given  with  the  other.     If  the  Foreign  Office  w.  i-    to  p] 


I 


572  ENGLAND. 

itself  under  the  new  regulations  known  as  Scheme  I.,  the  open  com- 
petition for  it  would  take  place  at  the  same  time  and  place,  and  in 
the  same  subjects  as  that  for  other  high-class  offices.  But  it  would 
be  perfectly  practicable  for  the  authorities  of  the  Foreign  Office  to 
make  their  selection,  not  from  any  of  the  new-comers  and  success- 
ful  candidates,  but  from  young  men  already  in  the  Civil  Service  of 
pleasing  manners,  good  connections,  and  independent  means.  In  a 
word,  open  competition  at  the  Foreign  Office  might  come  to  signify 
in  practice  the  adoption  of  that  mode  of  nomination  by  transfer 
which  has  created  dissatisfaction  at  the  Treasury. 

There  remains  the  army.  That  the  profession  of  arms  is,  during 
the  last  quarter  of  a  century  in  England,  extremely  popular  with  all 
classes,  high  and  low,  cannot  be  doubted  any  more  than  that  the 
tone  and  qualifications  of  officers  of  all  branches  of  the  service  have 
signally  improved.  The  army,  at  the  present  day,  is  at  once  aristo- 
cratic and  national;  it  enjoys  the  favor  of  society,  and  the  sons  of 
the  people  gain  Her  Majesty's  commission,  and  serve  with  credit 
and  success.  On  the  one  hand,  the  complaint  is  made,  with  what- 
ever degree  of  truth,  by  university  authorities,  that  young  men  of 
birth  and  position  do  not  go  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge  in  the  same 
numbers  as  formerly;  on  the  other  hand,  since  the  abolition  of  pur- 
chase, there  have  been  certainly  signs  of  the  growth  of  a  class  which 
was  formerly  strange  among  us,  namely,  that  of  the  professional 
soldier.  Thus  if  there  are  more  young  men  who  adopt  the  army  as 
a  kind  of  social  training-school,  and  a  substitute  for  academic  life, 
there  are  more  also  who  enter  it  with  a  determination,  like  that 
which  has  been  already  noted  among  barristers,  to  make  out  of  it 
the  business  of  their  lives.  Nor  is  there  any  thing  to  warrant  the 
belief  that  the  officers  of  the  English  army  are  likely  to  be  less  effi- 
cient soldiers  in  the  future  than  in  the  past.  The  competition  for 
commissions  in  the  line  is  tolerably  keen,  but  the  examination  is 
simple.  There  is  not  the  slightest  appearance  of  any  deterioration 
in  the  physique  or  muscular  accomplishments  of  candidates  since 
competition  has  been  established.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  gen- 
erally spoken  of  as  being  smarter  than  ever,  knowing  better  what 
their  duties  are,  and  better  able  to  perform  them.  If  they  are  bet- 
ter scholars  they  are  also  better  soldiers. 

So  far  as  the  aristocracy  is  concerned  it  is  intelligible  that  fewer 
of  their  sons  should  2:0  annuallv  to  the  university.  The  taste  for 
culture  among  the  upper  classes  of  English  society  is  not  on  the  in- 
crease. In  the  old  days  the  bench  of  bishops  was  largely  reinforced 
from  the  sons  of  the  great  families.     This  natural  process  of  ascent 


PROFESSIOXAL    ENGLAND. 

from  the  purple  to  the  prelacy  has  ceased  to  be  the  order  of  the 
day.     The  Church  of  England  is  looked  upon  as  an  institution  thai 
holds  its  existence  upou  a  precarious  tenure.     There  is  nothin 
prevent  young  men  in  any  rank  of  life  from  going  to  the  univ<  i 
first,  and  into  the  army  afterward.     A  certain  number  of  commis- 
sions are  annually  given  to  selected  candidates  from  Oxford  and 
Cambridge.     These   nominations,   however,    are   not  to   the   army 
direct,  but  only  to  Sandhurst;  and  the  young  officer  who  prefaces 
a  military  career  with  an  academic  training  considers  that  he  . 
three  or  four  years  in  the  competition  for  a  colonelcy. 

The  army,  like  emigration,  or  indeed  like  many  departments  of 
commercial  life,  is  practically  closed  against  lads  who  have  not  the 
command  of  a  certain  amount  of  capital.  In  England  the  subaltern 
in  a  marching  regiment  caimot  possibly  live  on  his  pay;  in  India  he 
may  not  only  be  independent  of  the  support  of  his  friends.  hut  may 
lay  by  money.  When  not  on  foreign  service,  the  pay  of  the  sub- 
lieutenant is  £100  7s.  6d.  per  annum,  of  the  lieutenant  £118  12a  lid. 
or  £136  17s.  6d.,  according  to  the  length  of  his  service;  and  of  < -at- 
tain £211  7s.  lid.;  from  which  must  be  deducted  twenty  days'  pay 
for  band  and  mess — for  though  the  former  claim  is  not  now  com- 
pulsory, it  is  generally  admitted.  To  this  must  be  added  th< 
of  entertainments  of  one  kind  and  another;  and  whilst  a  French 
subaltern,  having  no  mess  to  pay,  probably  gets  his  meals  at  a  r<  s- 
taurant  for  £3  or  £4  a  month,  an  English  officer  of  the  same  grade 
will  find  his  necessary  exj>enses  nearly  four  times  that  Bum. 

No  account  of  the  existing  opportunities  of  professional  England 
would  be  complete  without  some  brief  survey  of  the  career  of  let- 
ters. Yet  though  literature  must  be  regarded  not  merely  as  an  art, 
but  as  a  profession,  or  a  trade,  and  while  there  are  a  greater  num- 
ber of  persons  in  England  now  making  a  comfortable  living  by  their 
pen  than  was  ever  previously  known,  there  is  less  of  what  can  prop- 
erly be  called  a  distinctly  professional  literary  class.  Most  moder- 
ately well-educated  people  nowadays  are  actual  or  potential  authors. 
They  have  dabbled  in  literature  for  purposes  of  pleasure  or  profit, 
they  have  published  a  book,  or  they  have  written  magazine  or  news- 
paper articles.  It  is  the  enormous  development  of  periodical  liter- 
ature of  one  sort  or  another  which  is  the  great  feature  of  the  til 
The  contributors  to  these  publications  are  drawn  from  e\ei\  olasfl 
of  English  society,  and  there  are  comparatively  few  persons  realiz- 
ing any  thing  like  a  comfortable  income  from  their  pen  who  are  in- 
dependent of  the  periodical  press  in  some  shape  <>r  other.  A  ; 
may  achieve  a  considerable  reputation,  and  yet  make  nothing  DJ 


574  ENGLAND. 

writings;  a  novelist  may  be  steadily  patronized  by  the  circulating 
libraries,  and  yet  secure  only  the  most  moderate  pecuniary  returns. 
Even  an  historian  or  a  philosopher  may  have  in^ressed  the  stamp 
■  of  his  intellect  upon  the  age,  and  yet  be  unable  to  live  on  what  his 
work  brings  in.  Only  those  who  have  risen  to  the  highest  position 
in  the  various  departments  of  independent  authorship,  as  philoso- 
phers,  historians,  novelists,  or  poets,  can  command  large  prices. 
Undisputed  eminence  may  realize  a  handsome  fortune;  respectable 
mediocrity  can  barely  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door. 

'Without  the  assistance  of  journalism,  no  writer  not  of  established 
/  reputation  can  make  what  even  to  a  modest  ambition  would  seem  a 
comfortable  fortune;  but  journalism  is  a  calling  in  which  a  fair 
measure  of  success  may  be  insured  by  most  who  are  not  egregiously 
unfitted  for  the  career.  Yet  even  journalism,  however  handsome 
the  incomes  made  by  the  successful  in  it  may  appear,  cannot  be 
pronounced  otherwise  than  poorly  remunerated,  if  compared  with 
certain  other  professions,  such  as  the  law  or  medicine.  There  are 
very  few  cases  known  or  possible,  in  which  a  newspaper  writer,  not 
being  the  editor  of  a  journal,  can  hope  to  realize  more  than  £1,500, 
or  at  the  most  £2,000  a  year;  probably  not  half  the  sum  that  either 
a  barrister  or  doctor,  occupying  an  analogous  level  of  professional 
distinction,  earns.  And  though  it  may  be  said  that  the  journalist 
who  secures  this  position  is  not  doomed  to  wait  like  the  one  for 
briefs,  or  like  the  other  for  patients,  for  an  indefinite  period,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  the  necessary  expenses  of  his  life  are  not  incon- 
siderable. He  has,  indeed,  no  great  establishment  to  keep  up;  but 
he  probably  finds  it  necessary  to  live  in  a  convenient,  which  is  usu- 
ally a  costly  quarter  of  the  town,  and  in  such  matters  as  locomotion 
his  disbursements  are  often  exceptionally  heavy.  The  hours,  too, 
and  the  conditions  under  which  his  work  has  to  be  done,  are  not 
such  as  to  suit  all  persons.  If  he  writes  leading  articles,  he  will 
have  to  hold  himself  at  the  disposition  of  his  editor,  and  will  very 
often  have  to  turn  night  into  day.  In  this  matter  different  arrange- 
ments are  made  in  different  newspaper  offices;  in  some,  no  regular 
engagement  is  given  to  the  writer  of  the  leading  articles  unless  he 
comes  to  the  office  between  ten  and  eleven  every  night;  in  all,  the 
development  of  telegraphic  communication  renders  it  necessary  for 
the  professional  journalist  to  hold  himself  in  readiness  to  write  at  a 
moment's  notice,  and  at  any  hour. 

Most  daily  newspapers  are  now  supplied  with  special  wires:  in 
the  case  of  the  metropolitan  press,  between  London  and  some  one 
or  more  of  the  Continental  capitals;  in  the  case  of  the  provincial 


rROFESSIOA'A I.    ENGL. I. YD. 

press,  between  the  town  of  issue  and  the  capital.     y.  ,v- 

ity  and  enterprise,  as  in  London  so  in  the  provinces,  have  been 
exhibited  on  a  very  surprising  scale.     In  mosl  great  towns  in  En- 
gland there  are  journals  published  every  morning,  equal   in  m 
respects  to  those  which  appear  in  London.     There  is  variety  of 
news,  that  news  is  well  arranged,  and  the  comm  ints  on  it  have  ofl 
the  merit  of  comparative  brevity.     The  views  taken  1>\  the 
are,  moreover,  sometimes  more  independent  of  official  and   pari 
mentary  influence.     In  his  "Order  and    Progress,"  Mr.    Frederic 
Harrison  says:   "The  enormous  preponderance   in   the   State  with 
which  the  House  of  Commons  has  gradually  invested  itself  lias  over- 
shadowed journalism,  and  has  converted  journalism  into  something 
which  is  called  a  fourth  estate,  but  is  really  an  appendage  to  the 
Commons."     At  the  same  tome,  it  is  beginning  to  be  recognized  as 
a  fact  that  mechanical  adherence  to  a  political  party  does  n  't  in- 
crease the  power  of  a  newspaper,  and  that  genuinely  independent 
journalism  is  one  of  the  great  products  of  the  time. 

There  is  more  of  originality,  freshness,  ability,  vigor,  and  variety 
displayed  in  the  newspaper  press  of  England  than  in  that  of  an;,  oth- 
er country  in  the  world.  It  is  customary  to  contrast  the  position  of 
journalism  in  England  with  its  position  in  France,  not  a  little  to  the 
advantage  of  the  latter,  and  there  may  be  some  truth  in  the  conclu- 
sion. That  it  is  much  easier  to  gain  a  political  position  by  writing  f<  >r 
the  French  press  than  by  writing  for  the  English,  is  chiefly  due  to 
the  circumstance  that  in  France  newspaper  articles  are  signed,  and 
in  England  they  are  not.  But  the  signed  system  is  really  impossible 
in  England,  and  may  some  day  become  impossible  in  France.  I 
every  newspaper  in  England,  there  are,  probably,  four  in  Prance — 
exclusive  organs  of  the  countless  cliques  held  together  by  the  per- 
sonal influence  of  a  few  individuals,  of  which  the  French  political 
system  is  composed.  Thus  the  French  newspapers  are  sectarian 
rather  than  national.  Neither  in  Paris  nor  in  the  provinces  is  any 
such  phenomenon  to  be  observed  as  a  greai  journal  which  3p 
the  people  as  a  whole.  "While  parties  are  as  infinitely  divided  and 
subdivided  as  is  the  ease  in  France,  a  journal  which  would  really  be 
a  symbol  of  national  unity  is  impossible.  Thus  we  have  ;t  hosl  of 
petty  prints,  insignificant  in  their  influence  and  in  their  contents, 
consisting  of  short  occasional  notes,  novels,  a  brief  narrative  of  con- 
temporary events,  and  articles  penned  by  the  acknowli  dged  lite] 
leader  of  a  political  coterie.  English  journalism  represents  inter- 
ests; French  journalism  represents  opinions. 

That  which  has  been  chiefly  instrumental  in  making  journal 


576  ENGLAND. 

a  not  unprofitable  profession  for  so  many  hundreds  and  thousands 
of  Englishmen  is  the  development,  the  energy,  and  the  enterprise 
of  the  penny  press.  Few  people  have  any  adequate  idea  of  the 
magnitude  of  the  interests  which  this  press  represents.  Let  us 
take  the  case  of  one  of  the  leading  penny  papers  of  the  metropolis. 
Here  is  a  journal  whose  average  total  expenditure  is  from  £200,000  to 
£270,000  a  year  and  whose  annual  jn-ofit  is  from  £55,000  to  £60,000. 
If  these  figures  are  respectively  divided  by  313 — the  number  of  work- 
ing da}'s  in  a  year — we  shall  have  the  daily  expenditure  and  profit  of 
a  London  paper,  sold  for  the  twelfth  part  of  a  shilling.  It  will  thus 
be  found  that  the  expenses  per  diem  of  such  a  paper  amount,  rough- 
ly speaking,  to  £860,  and  that  the  daily  profit  is  close  upon  £200 
■ — in  other  words,  the  total  daily  receipts  are  as  nearly  as  possible 
£1,000,  and  the  total  yearly  receipts  £313,000.  This,  of  course,  in- 
cludes every  item  on  which,  in  a  daily  newspaper  office,  it  may  be 
necessary  to  expend  money — printing  machinery,  telegraphic  wires, 
telegrams,  and  the  pay  of  editors,  sub-editors,  writers,  reporters, 
and  others.  These  establishments  do  not  only  exist  in  London,  but 
in  most  large  towns  of  the  country;  and  though  the  scale  on  which 
they  are  carried  on  in  the  provinces  is  less  considerable  than  in  Lon- 
don, the  number  of  persons  for  whom  employment  is  afforded  is  very 
large.  The  writing  of  leading  articles  is  only  one  branch  of  the  pro- 
fession of  journalism.  Within  the  office  of  a  daily  newspaper  is  a 
staff  of  managers,  clerks,  cashiers,  in  addition  to  those  persons  con- 
cerned in  the  actual  production  of  it.  Outside,  there  is  a  regiment 
of  reporters,  some  in  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  some  in  the  law 
courts,  perpetually  busy,  and  earning  for  the  most  part  sufficient  to 
support  themselves  and  their  families.  In  near  and  remote  quar- 
ters of  the  world  are  special  correspondents — themselves  represent- 
ing a  numerous  and  important  branch  and  interest  of  journalism — 
transmitting  graphic  word-pictures  by  telegraph  or  mail  of  battles, 
sieges,  celebrations,  jubilees:  now  of  a  wedding,  and  now  of  a  fu- 
neral; to-day  of  a  death  in  Central  Africa,  to-morrow  of  a  sudden 
disaster  that  has  fallen  upon  an  entire  neighborhood  in  Central 
Europe.  Peculiar  qualifications  are  indispensable  in  the  case  of 
the  special  correspondent.  He  must  not  merely  have  the  pen  of  a 
ready,  a  vigorous,  and  an  effective  writer,  but  must  possess  a  robust 
constitution  capable  of  bearing  extremes  of  climate  and  tempera- 
ture; must  be  able  to  write  under  any  circumstances,  and  to  con- 
trive by  some  means  or  other  to  post  himself  wherever  any  thing 
of  importance  is  taking  place;  and,  moreover,  be  as  impervious  to 
moral  or  social  rebuff  as  to  physical  fatigue. 


PROFESSIONAL    I  . />.  .-,77 

Notwithstanding  the  development  of  new  types  of  journalism  : 

of  weekly  newspapers  embellished  with  everj  Kind  of  illustration 
(some  of  them  employing  special  artists  as  the  dailj  journal  -  taploya 
its  apecial  correspondents),  devoted  to  every  kind  of  topic  or  inti 
est — literature,  art,  the  stage,  science,  trade  (for  nowadays  d 
trades  have  their  special  representatives  in  the  weekbj  press),  amuse- 
ment, sport,  "society" — notwithstanding  these  novel  additions  to 
the  long  list  of  the  newspaper  press  and  their  periodical  multipli- 
cations, for  one  success  is  sure  to  provoke  a  host  of  imitators,  no1 
necessarily  always  failures — it  may  possibly  be  thai  in  England  the 
newspaper  of  the  future  has  yet  to  come  into  being.  There  arc 
some  persons  who  think  that  under  the  present  system  we  are  over- 
ridden with  leading  articles,  and  that  a  journal  which  should  revi  it 
to  its  original  function  of  supplying  in  the  first  instance  news,  ami 
of  commenting  upon  this  news  in  the  briefest  and  pithicsl  way, 
would  command  a  large  success.  It  does  not  follow  that  if  this 
prospect  were  fulfilled  the  influence  of  the  English  newspaper  press 
would  be  materially  lessened.  As  it  is,  the  press  has.  probably, 
more  power  in  the  discussion  of  social  than  of  political  questions; 
but  in  either  its  power  does  not  arise  exclusively  from  its  comments. 
The  business  of  newspapers  is  not  so  much  to  create  or  withstand 
popular  cries,  as  to  help  to  regulate  them,  and  to  supply  the  public 
with  materials  for  estimating  their  value.  Foreign  correspondents, 
reporters  of  every  kind,  have  almost  as  much  opportunity  of  instruct- 
ing the  public  mind  by  the  news  they  give,  and  the  way  in  which 
they  give  it,  as  leader-writers  themselves.  If  there  be  any  defect  in 
English  journalism  at  the  present  time,  it  is  that  it  gives  us  too 
r  much  of  opinion,  and  too  little  of  news;  and  that  in  giving  us  news, 
it  does  not  always  exercise  sufficient  discrimination  as  to  what  does 
and  what  does  not  come  within  this  category.  There  is  not  likely  to 
be  any  change  in  the  methods  by  which  alone  success  in  newspaper 
proprietorship  is  possible.  While  we  may  anticipate  that  news- 
papers will  give  us  more  and  more  intelligence  and  less  and  less 
criticism,  and  while  it  may  be  reasonable  to  anticipate  for  them  an 
immensely  increased  circulation,  the  cost  of  production  will  still  be 
so  enormous  that  the  proprietors  can  only  hope  substantially  to 
recoup  themselves  by  advertisements.  It  is,  and  it  will  probably 
continue  to  be,  the  literal  fact  that  the  multiplication  of  the  copies 
sold  is  only  useful  as  an  agency  for  increasing  the  number  of  ad 
tisements;  and  that  except  when  pa] >er  is  unusually  cheap,  the  actual 
profit  realized  on  each  impression  sold  is  infinitesimal 

There  is  a  large  and  important  section  of  professional  England 
37 


578  ENGLAND. 

which  lies  far  outside  the  four  seas.  Official  England  and  com- 
mercial England  exist  in  the  foreign  dej)endencies  of  Great  Britain 
as  well  as  in  Great  Britain  herself,  and  the  fortunes  spent  in  the 
mother  country  have  often  been  made  in  the  tropics  or  at  the  anti- 
podes. Firmly  wedded  though  England  has  been  to  a  policy  of  non- 
intervention in  Eiu'opean  affairs,  she  has  never  remained  long  with- 
out an  opportunity  of  showing  in  different  parts  of  her  colonial 
empire  that  there  still  breathes  within  her  the  spirit  that  has  made 
her  the  mistress  of  a  continent.  Her  colonial  empire  has  not  only 
supplied  Englishmen  with  an  opening  for  their  industry  and  peace- 
ful enterprise,  but  has  also  exercised  them  in  the  profession  of  arms. 
Not  merely  in  the  eighteenth  century,  but  in  the  nineteenth  century 
too,  have  India  and  our  colonies  provided  much  the  same  stimulus 
for  English  imagination  and  for  English  enterprise,  as  did  the  wars 
of  Raleigh  and  Blake  against  the  Spanish  in  the  Elizabethan  epoch. 
India,  however,  while  it  has  been  undoubtedly  the  nurse  of  the  mil- 
itary sentiment  amongst  Englishmen,  has  been  much  besides.  It 
has  not  only  provided  a  military  career  for  hundreds  and  thousands 
of  Englishmen,  but  it  has  brought  with  it  a  great  amount  of  purely 
civilian  occupation — that  of  the  engineer,  the  merchant,  the  tea 
planter,  as  well  as  of  the  civil  administrator.  The  competition 
Wallah  is  now  rather  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  old,  and 
under  the  system,  the  government  of  India  has  been  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  great  multitude  of  the  English  middle  classes — with 
many  advantages  to  the  latter,  and  not  a  few  to  India  itself.  Com- 
petition has  unquestionably  raised  the  average  official  standard. 
Work  in  all  its  branches,  and  more  especially  in  the  lower,  is  bet- 
ter done  than  formerly.  The  past  generation  of  Anglo-Indian  civ- 
ilians would,  it  may  be  assumed,  have  been  infinitely  less  successful 
than  the  present,  in  making  abstracts  of  evidence,  in  drawing  up 
decisions,  and  in  writing  reports.  And  while  some  scholars,  and 
several  more  or  less  distinguished  Uterateurs,  have  been  the  result 
of  the  competition  Wallahs,  the  class  has  not  proved  deficient  in . 
men  of  action,  or  men  of  great  business-like  aptitudes.  There  is 
thus  a  distinct  improvement  in  the  general  administration  of  the 
affairs  of  the  empire,  in  the  administration  of  justice,  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  municipal  matters;  there  is  also  less  of  malingering,  of  idle- 
ness, of  jobbery  and  of  favoritism. 

These  great  virtues  are  not  without  their  corresponding  defects. 
No  administrator  of  the  highest  distinction  has  yet  appeared  amongst 
the  new  Indian  civilians;  nor  can  it  be  said  that,  as  a  body,  these 
have  displayed  the  loyalty  to  the  Government,  which  was  charac- 


riiOFES:  VGLAND.  579 

teristic  of  the  period  when  the  distribution  of  official  honors 
mainly  a  matter  of  family  arrangement     There  were  In  tho 
innumerable  abuses;  but  above  and  redeeming  all,  th< 
idea  that  the  general  interests  of  the  Government  were  the  int.  ■ 
of  each  individual  serving  under  it.     If  extra  duties  had  at  any  time 
to  be  discharged,  they  were  discharged  without  grumbling,  because 
the  officials  felt  that  all  exertion  promoted  the  welfare  of  the  firm. 
The  competition  "Wallahs,"  on  the  contrary,  are  not  in  ever} 
alive  to  the  same  kind  of  corporate  interest.     They  have  gone  to 
India  to  make  as  much  money  out  of  the  country  as  possible,  and  to 
leave  it  as  quickly;  to  realize  an  earbj  annuity  and  return  home. 
They  are  in  the  position  of  men  who  have  contracted  with  their  em- 
ployers to  do  a  certain  amount  of  work  and  no  more,  and  who  i: 
exceptionally  heavy  demand  be  made  upon  them,  resent   it   as  an 
imposition.     The  feeling  is  that  the  Government  has  fix<  terms 

and  must  be  kept  to  them. 

Nor  can  the  more  general  relations  between  England  and  India 
be  looked  on  as  entirely  satisfactory  under  the  new  system.  There 
is  less  of  sympathy  and  acquaintance  with  4he  natives  than  formerly. 
The  "Wallahs  are  better  linguists  than  their  predecessors,  bu<  they 
see  very  little  of  the  native  gentlemen  of  the  country.  This,  of 
course,  may  be  in  a  great  degree  due  to  the  relations  which  have 
been  developed  between  natives  and  Europeans  as  a  consequence 
of  the  Mutiny;  and  it  maybe  readily  admitted  that  sometimes  the 
old  civilians  were  too  friendly  with  the  natives — borrowing  their 
horses  and  carriages,  and  making  them  buy  often  useless  articles 
when  leaving  the  country  on  furlough  or  for  good.  Still  it  cannot 
be  desirable  that  the  natives  should  say,  as  they  are  ■  .v  to 

say,  "We  cannot  have  a  chat  with  your  officers,  or  ask  ad\ 
Again,  whereas  in  the  old  times  possibly  halt'  the  officials  wer< 
atives  or  friends  of  the  directors,  and  were  in  constant    | 
communication  with  the  representatives  of  the  Home  Government, 
there  is  to-day  little  or  no  connection  or  common  interesl   bet 
the  Wallahs   and   the   department   of  the   Secretary   of  £ 
Whitehall 


CHAPTER   XXXI. 

IMPERIAL    ENGLAND    AND    CONCLUSION. 

Increasing  need  of  Emigration — Extent  and  Character  of  the  British  Empire — ■ 
Past  and  probable  Future  Increase  of  our  Colonial  Population — Relations 
of  Colonies  to  Mother  Country:  (1)  Financial,  (2)  Commercial — Loyalty  of 
Colonies  to  Mother  Country — Imperial  Federation — Forces  of  Repulsion 
and  Cohesion  at  Work  in  the  Relations  between  England  and  her  Colo- 
nial Dependencies — Common  Features  of  the  Colonies — Points  on  which 
the  Condition  of  the  Colonies  may  be  considered  prophetic  of  the  Con- 
dition of  Things  yet  to  be  realized  in  England — General  Nature  of  En- 
gland's Responsibilities — Imperial  Duties  of  the  Statesmanship  of  the  Fu- 
ture— What  will  that  Future  be? — Conclusion. 


w 


E  have  seen  that  among  the  chief  wants  of  domestic  England 
VV  is  that  of  careers  and  professions  for  her  sons.  The  esti- 
mated total  population  of  the  United  Kingdom  was  in  1876  close 
upon  thirty-four  millions.  It  is  increasing  at  something  like  two 
millions  every  ten  years,  and  the  rate  will  yet  be  accelerated.  By 
the  close  of  the  century  the  inhabitants  of  these  islands  can  scarcely 
number  less  than  forty-five  million  souls.  How  within  the  four 
seas  are  employment  and  the  means  of  subsistence  to  be  found  for 
so  vast  a  multitude  ?  Here,  then,  the  opportunities  of  colonization 
suggest  themselves;  and  it  is  natural  to  turn  from  the  smaller  Brit- 
ain, which  is  at  home,  to  the  greater  Britain,  which  is  beyond  the 
seas. 

Nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  Queen  Victoria's  subjects  left 
the  shores  of  then  country  in  1877  for  foreign  lands,  including  the 
United  States  of  America.  A  larger  number  could  well  have  been 
spared.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  chances  which  await  the  emi- 
grant in  the  colonies  are  not  better  than  the  chances  he  leaves  be- 
hind him  in  the  country  of  his  birth.  This  is  partly  because  many 
of  those  who  yearly  set  sail  for  our  foreign  dependencies  are  men 
who  have  failed  in  England,  and  partly  because  the  conditions  of 
colonial  life  and  the  qualifications  requisite  for  colonial  success  are 
imperfectly  understood.     Two  things  seem  certain:   one,  that  the 


IMPERIAL    ENGLAND    AND    CONCLUSION. 

intending  colonist,  who  has  not  capital  must  be  prepari  d  bo  perform 
any  work,  however  irksome  or  Lowly,  which  is  forthcoming;  the 
ond,  that  emigration  should  take  place  at  a  much  earlier  age  th  i 

now  usual.     A  national  system  of  education  is  giving  us  annually, 
and  in  an  increasing  degree,  a  number  of  fairly  intelligent  1 
girls,  for  all  of  whom  there   cannot  be  sufficiently  remunerative 
occupation  here.     In  these  may  be  recognized  the  material  1'^r  col- 
onists, who  would  not  only  win  prosperity  and  comforl   for  them- 
selves, hut  who  would  be  a  great  acquisition  to  the  dependenc 
which  they  migrated.     Emigration   societies  already   exist    in 
gland.     It  might  surely  be  possible  to  extend   the  operations  of 
these  in  such  a  way  as  to  draft  off  a  certain  annual   percenta 
the   surplus  population  before   they  could  learn   the   evil  wa\  - 
idleness. 

The  px-ecise  extent  and  population  of  the  foreign  dominion- 
England   cannot,   perhaps,   be   estimated   with   absolute   certainty. 
The  Colonial  Office  in  London  has  to  deal  with  several   diffi 
kinds  of  communities.     There   are   the  military  outposts,   such   as 
Gibraltar  and  Malta;   next  there  are  those — like   the    West    I 
Islands,  Ceylon,  Natal,  the  Transvaal,  the  Mauritius,  and  oth< 
which   are  known  as  Crown  colonies,  where  also  the  executiv 
still  with  the  Crown;  thii'dly,  there  are  the  self-governing  col 
— the  Australian  group,  the  Canadian  domain,  New  Zealand,  and 
Cape  Colony.     Another  principle  of  division  might  be  adopted 
that  of  colonies  winch  are  and  colonies  which  are  not  ada]  I 
permanent  inhabitation  by  Europeans.     Excluding  all  that   come 
under  the  latter  category,  and  amongst  them  the  British  Empire  in 
India,  there  remains  a  total  area  of  four  millions  of  square  mil'-.-. 
eminently  suited,  so  far  as  climate  is  concerned,  to  be  the  abiding 
home  of  men  and  women  of  the  British  race.     If  there  be  added  to 
this  the  dependencies  that  have  been  purposely  omitted,  thoe 
British  India  and  the  other  tropical  settlements,  another  four  mil- 
lions of  square  miles  will  have  to  be  taken  into  consid  (ration      i  : 
other  words,  of  the  entire  surface  of  the  globe,  eighl   millions  i  t 
square  miles,  or  rather  more  than  one  eighth,  is  British  territory, 
whilst  of  the  true  home  of  all  white  races — the  temperate  regions 
of  the  earth— eighty  per  cent,  belongs  to  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  of  America,  of  which  the  former  possesses  forty-four 
per  cent.,   or  nearly  one  half  of  the  whole.     Physical   conditions 
render  it  necessary  for  the  European  emigrant  seeking  a  home 
himself  and  Iris  children  to  go  where  the  English  langu  spo- 

ken and  where  English  institutions  prevail.     If  he  studi  char- 


582  ENGLAND. 

acter  of  the  men  and  women  around  him,  lie  will  find  that  it  can 
only  be  understood  by  a  knowledge  of  English  history — that  it  has, 
in  fact,  been  formed  by  the  character  of  Englishmen  in  past  ages; 
and  if  he  should  go  to  Africa,  or  to  the  great  islands  of  the  West,  or 
to  America  north  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  he  will  yet  find  himself  a 
subject  of  the  English  Queen.  The  population  of  these  colonies  has 
increased  in  the  last  twenty-one  years  eighty-eight  per  cent.,  at 
which  rate  they  should  have  at  the  end  of  the  century  a  population 
of  fifteen  millions. 

It  will  be  well,  next,  to  inquire  what  are  the  financial  relations 
of  the  mother  country  to  the  colonies.  So  long  as  the  colonies 
were  treated  as  places  of  exile  for  criminals,  it  was  right  that  En- 
gland should  contribute  not  only  to  their  military  defense  but  to 
their  civil  government.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  expenditure  which 
the  colonies  now  entail  upon  the  mother  country  is  less  than  two 
millions  a  year.  It  is  said  that  her  colonial  empire  imposes  upon 
Great  Britain  a  further  cost  in  the  necessity  of  maintaining  a  much 
larger  fieet  than  she  would  otherwise  require.  But  the  obvious  an- 
swer to  this  is,  that  under  any  circumstances  a  fleet  scarcely  smaller 
than  that  which  is  now  supported  would  be  necessary  for  the  pro- 
tection of  British  commerce.  In  order  to  reduce  the  fleet,  the  com- 
merce of  the  country  as  well  as  its  colonies  must  be  sacrificed;  a 
result  for  which  those  who  are  willing  to  part  with  the  colonies  are 
not  jnepared.  Besides,  an  essential  gain  to  England  from  her  colo- 
nies is  found  in  the  commercial  relations  which  exist  between  the 
two.  The  expression,  "  Trade  follows  the  flag,"  is  simply  a  way  of 
saying  that  the  lines  of  commerce  coincide  with  the  limits  of  empire. 
In  proportion  as  British  commerce  with  the  United  States  decreases, 
and  the  United  States  supplant  England  in  her  own  domestic  mar- 
kets, the  greater  the  necessity  to  cement  the  commercial  union  be- 
tween Great  Britain  and  her  colonies.  Notwithstanding  the  pro- 
tectionist legislation  which  exists  in  many  colonies,  they  still  take 
more  English  goods  than  any  other  country  or  people.  Whilst  in 
1874  our  nearest  neighbors  bought  less  than  17s.  a  head  of  British 
commodities,  our  fellow-countrymen  at  the  Antipodes  purchased  an 
average  of  £10  worth.  Our  imports  from  and  our  exports  to  the 
colonies  are"  respectively  about  11  per  cent,  and  121  per  cent,  of 
the  imports  and  exports  from  and  to  all  other  countries. 

Even  thus,  it  may  be  said,  the  relations  between  the  colonies 
and  the  mother  country  are  not  satisfactory,  and  until  an  imperial 
tariff  has  been  established,  by  which  an  approach  to  free  trade  is 
insured  throughout  the  whole  of  the  British  Empire,  the  colonies 


IMPERIAL    ENGLAND   AND    CONCH 

have  the  power  to  place  the  mother  country  under  a  positive  disad- 
vantage. The  prospects  of  the  ultimate  accomplishmenl  <>i'  such  a 
measure  depend  upon  the  general  political  relations  which  events 
may  develop  between  the  mother  countrj  and  the  colonies.     Thai 

the  lust  few  years  have  witnessed  the  assertion  of  the  imperial  senti- 
ment in  England,  not  as  a  mere  effervescence,  hut  as  an  abiding 
phase  of  national  conviction,  there  may,  or  may  uot,   b<  n  to 

believe.  When,  in  1878,  there  seemed  a  prospeel  of  a  hostile  col- 
lision between  Eussia  and  England,  the  oiler  was  made  r<  p<  atedly 
by  the  colonial  subjects  of  the  English  Crown  in  Canada  and  at  the 
Antipodes  to  dispatch  battalions  of  volunteers  This  is  a  circum- 
stance which,  with  many  others,  is  suggestive  of  the -conviction  that. 
the  great  colonies  of  England  have  no  wish  to  sever  the  link 
that  binds  them  to  the  mother  country,  even  though  the  connec- 
tion imposes  on  them  the  perils  and  burden  of  responsibility,  it  is 
the  almost  unanimous  opinion  of  competent  observers,  who  have 
by  extensive  travel  made  themselves  acquainted  with  colonial  feel- 
ing, that  her  dependencies  would  scorn  to  stand  aloof  from  a  war 
undertaken  in  defense  of  those  principles  which  lie  at  the  founda- 
tion of  English  greatness,  or  in  redemption  of  those  engagements 
which  Great  Britain  has  in  time  past  undertaken.  There  i-.  of 
course,  another  side  to  this  question.  It  may  be  urged  that  the 
colonies  will  not  permanently  consent  to  be  liable  for  the  results  of 
a  policy  which  they  have  had  no  part  in  shaping;  and  certainly 
if  this  policy  were  to  be  systematically  turbulent,  aggressive,  and 
costly,  that  is  a  reluctance  which  woidd  be  very  emphatically  dis- 
played. The  practical  question  thus  arises.  How  will  it  be  possible 
to  give  the  colonies  the  influence  they  may  claim  in  molding  imp  - 
rial  policy  ? 

For  the  direct  dependence  of  the  colonies  on  the  mother  coun- 
try, it  is  suggested  that  there  may  be  gradually  substituted  a  feder- 
ation of  all  English-speaking  countries:  each  self-governin 
the  management  of  its  local  affairs;  each  bound  to  assist  the  other 
in  time  of  imperial  emergency;  and  each  represent*  d  at  some  given 
imperial  center,  which  might  be,  as  now,  London.  Bui  in  addition 
to  the  practical  difficulties  in  the  way  of  this  proposal  and  the  con- 
fusion in  the  working  of  the  representative  principle  thai  it  would 
involve,  there  is  the  fact  that  at  the  present  momenl  the  colonies 
are  directly  or  indirectly  represented  in  the  House  of  Commons  by 
men  who  have  passed  their  lives  there.  This  does  not 
the  circumstance  that  there  is  much  in  the  position  of  the  colonies 
which  may  lead  to  future  conflict.     Though  the  self-governed 


584  ENGLAND. 

pendencies  make  their  own  laws,  the  Crown  has  a  veto  which  i 
exercised  through  the  Colonial  Minister  of  the  day.  There  are 
other  difficulties  that  the  existing  relations  may  develop.  It  has 
been  said,  though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  experience  is  seldom  likely 
to  prove  such  to  be  the  case,  that  the  English  system  of  party  gov- 
ernment, and  the  chance  which  there  always  exists  of  the  colonial 
policy  of  one  Grovernment  being  reversed  by  that  of  its  successor, 
may  keep  the  colonists  in  a  state  of  unrest  that  will  become  intoler- 
able. There  is  the  further  consideration  that  the  political  party 
which,  for  the  time  being,  is  the  depositary  of  power  in  England, 
may  be  opposed  to  that  which  is  in  the  ascendant  in  the  colonies, 
and  that  thus  want  of  political  sympathies  may  pave  the  way  to  the 
disintegration  of  the  empire. 

But  if  these  are  the  apparent  agencies  of  repulsion,  what  are  the 
forces  of  cohesion  actually  at  work  ?  No  more  powerful  influence 
has  exerted  itself  in  the  latter  half  of  this  century  than  that  of 
nationality.  Italy  has  become  united,  the  German  Empire  estab- 
lished, whilst  the  American  Union  has  been  cemented  by  a  war 
which  cost  half  a  million  of  men  and  a  thousand  millions  of  money. 
The  same  influence  can  scarcely  fail  to  make  itself  felt  among  the 
English-speaking  races  throughout  the  world.  These  have  not  only 
a  common  language,  but  a  common  history.  The  union  may  neces- 
sitate, as  for  the  matter  of  that  all  political  union  does,  much  of 
mutual  concession  and  compromise.  There  is  also  an  attraction  for 
the  multitude  in  these  dependencies  in  their  association  with  so 
ancient  a  sovereignty  as  that  of  England.  But  if  the  connection 
between  the  mother  country  and  the  colonies  is  to  be  sentimental 
mainly,  it  is  clear  that  the  mother  country  herself  must  omit  nothing 
that  can  promote  and  strengthen  this  sentiment  in  an  appropriate 
way.  The  colonists  must  not  be  treated  like  poor  relations.  Hence 
Mr.  J.  A.  Froude  suggests  that,  in  addition  to  the  single  colonial 
decoration — that  of  St.  Michael  and  St.  George — which  now  exists, 
distinguished  colonists  should  occasionally  be  elevated  to  the  peer- 
age, or  should  be  made  members  of  the  Privy  Council;*  that  a  cer- 
tain number  of  vacancies  in  the  various  departments  of  the  Civil 
Service  at  home  and  abroad  should  be  allotted  to  colonists;  that 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  should  be  encouraged  to  unite  with  the 
colonies  in  founding  scholarships  and  fellowships  bearing  colonial 

*  While  these  pages  are  passing  through  the  press  the  Court  Circular  of 
Aug.  15  contains  the  following  announcement: — "Sir  John  Macdonald,  K.C.B., 
Prime  Minister  of  Canada,  was  introduced  at  the  Council  and  sworn  in  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Privy  Council." 


IMPERIAL    ENGLAND    A. YD    CONCLUSION, 

names,  the  candidates  for  which  should   be  educated   in   col 
schools;  and  finally,  thai  there  should  be  instituted  in  the  Bi 
army  and  navy  special  opportunities  for  the  display  of  colonial  patri- 
otism— that  there  should  be  Australian  and  Canadian  regiments  just 
as  there  are  now  Highland  and  Irish  regiments. 

Considerations  affecting  the  nature  of  the  tie  which  may  in  I 
future  bind  them  together  are  not  the  only  ones  suggested  1»\  the 
present  relations  of  the  colonies  to  the  mother  country;  and  in 
the  extent  and  condition  of  the  foreign  dependencies  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, other  lessons  than  those  of  the  greatness  of  England  maj  !■■• 
found.  As  the  opinion  of  foreign  nations  is  said  to  enable  our  to 
anticipate  the  verdict  of  posterity,  so  is  it  possible  that  in  the  state 
of  the  English  colonies  to-day  the  tendencies  at  work  within  the 
limits  of  the  United  Kingdom,  and  the  direction  in  which  British 
polity  is  drifting,  may  be  recognized  more  clearly  than  if  th< 
tion  were  exclusively  confined  to  England.  Such  conditions  as  life 
in  a  new  country  presents — the  building  up  of  new  institutions,  the 
release  from  old  prejudices,  the  possession  of  larger  individual 
power,  the  absence  of  pauperism,  the  avenues  opened  to  personal 
ambition,  the  enjoyment  of  greater  plenty,  though  associated  with 
more  adventurous  life — must  tell  on  the  character  of  a  people.  <  >u 
the  other  hand,  the  circumstances  of  dealing  with  native  races,  the 
admixture  of  a  foreign  stock  (such  as  the  French  in  Canada,  the 
Dutch  in  South  Africa),  the  mode  in  which  society  has  constru 
itself  (for  example,  the  existence  in  some  possessions  of  a  convid 
element,  the  hasty  attraction  of  population  by  gold  or  diamond 
mines,  or  its  leisurely  consolidation  under  less  alluring  temptations), 
and  a  great  variety  of  other  circumstances,  emphasize  local  ] 
liarities  in  the  separate  communities.  Thus  the  several  white  popu- 
lations of  the  colonies  and  dependencies  of  the  emp,  growing 
up  with  many  common  and  many  widely  divergent  char. 

The  common  features  are  for  the  most  part  of  an  elevating  na- 
ture. Of  these  the  consciousness  of  taking  part  in  the  formation  of 
a  new  community,  the  sense  of  individual  power,  the  open  air  life, 
the  vast  areas  open  to  occupation,  and  the  enjoyment  of  plenty  may 
be  named,  whilst  above  all  are  the  prospects  of  advancement  to 
wealth  and  influence.  Indeed,  the  last  pr,smts  a  prima  facie  reason 
for  anticipating  in  a  colonial  community  an  improvemenl  of  the 
stock  whence  it  sprung.     The  colonists  represent   th<  who 

have  had  the  energy  and  courage  to  try  to  amend  their  positi 
they  are,  in  other  words,  what  a  Darwinian  would  describe  as  the 
survival  of  the  fittest.     Thus  whilst  the  people  of  i  c  Great 


586  ENGLAND. 

Britain  are  building  up  for  themselves  an  important  position  in  re- 
lation to  their  fellow-countrymen  at  home,  there  may  be  discerned 
amongst  them  the  nascent  qualities  of  independence,  self-reliance, 
ambition,  generosity,  and  loyalty,  somewhat  tempered  by  conceit 
and  by  intolerance  of  the  weaknesses  of  others. 

An  ordinary  Englishman  arrives  in  a  colony  with  an  idea  that 
his  colonial  fellow-subjects  have  much  to  learn,  and  that  he  will  in- 
struct them.  But  the  first  few  weeks  in  his  new  home  are  a  suc- 
cession of  disillusions.  Colonists  have  their  own  ways  of  doing 
things,  and  they  believe  in  those  ways.  After  a  time  the  would-be 
teacher  also  grows  to  believe  in  them.  In  the  course  of  years  he 
returns  to  the  mother  country.  He  comes  back  with  something  of 
the  same  contempt  for  the  people  at  home  as  he  originally  carried 
out  with  him  for  the  colonists.  He  expects  to  find  things  very 
much  as  he  left  them.  Of  course  he  is  again  undeceived.  There 
has  been  no  lack  of  progress,  and,  as  he  discovers,  there  is  no  want 
of  capacity.  Yet  he  is  not  unable,  in  spite  of  his  protracted  absence 
from  the  old  country,  to  hold  his  own  with  his  countrymen,  while 
on  the  whole  he  finds  that  his  own  capacity  has  been  improved  by 
his  colonial  experiences.  The  successes  of  returned  colonists  are 
neither  few  nor  inconsiderable. 

To  understand  colonial  institutions  it  is  necessary  to  understand 
the  colonists;  for  the  virtues  and  faults  of  the  latter  are  reflected  in 
the  former.  Although  these  communities  are  small  and  young, 
they  have  intricate,  complicated,  and  imperfectly  developed  organ- 
isms, some  of  which  may  be  glanced  at  with  a  considerable  amount 
of  profit.  The  constitutional  colonies  are  new  departures,  the  par- 
ent state  occupying  a  midway  position  between  them  and  the 
Crown  dependencies.  The  last  are  the  most  antiquated;  they 
strangely  contrast  not  only  with  their  mother  but  with  their 
younger  sisters.  Democracy  has  a  certain  force  in  Great  Britain, 
a  larger  force  in  the  constitutional  colonies,  and  little  or  no  force 
in  the  Crown  dependencies.  And  whilst  colonial  institutions  do 
not  appear  to  be  approximating  in  character  to  those  of  the  mother 
country,  it  is  far  from  certain  that  those  of  the  mother  country  are 
not  tending  in  the  direction  of  the  young  colonies. 

The  same  causes  lead  to  the  production  of  like  effects.  The 
democratic  influences  at  work  in  Great  Britain  are  calculated  to 
effect  results,  such  as  more  powerful  waves  of  democracy  have  ac- 
complished in  her  foreign  dependencies.  It  is  rather  hastily  as- 
sumed that  the  difficulty,  which  is  characteristic  of  colonial  politics, 
of  maintaining  exclusively  two  strongly  marked  parties  and  prevent- 


IMPERIAL    ENGLAND    AND    CONCH 

them  Erom  splitting  up  into  main  sections,  is  :l  , 
want  of  age  and  tradition.    Whoever  analyzes  what  Lb  .  i  the 

mother  country  may  at  least  suspect  that  there  is  a  tend< 
also  to  destroy  the  distinctiveness  of  two  political  organizations,  I 
to  replace  them  with  many  Bchools  of  thought  s*  pan  b  .1  rather  1>\ 
present  interests  than  by  broad  and  fundamental  diffi  r<  q«  j.  In 
the  colonies,  except  during  periods  of  peculiar  political  ezcdtemi  at, 
it  is  regarded  as  somewhat  humiliating  it'  a  candidate  Bhould  do 
more  than  promise  support  to  a  leader  so  long  as  he  app]  i  Ins 

conduct.     To  undertake  to  support  him  because  lie  ha.U  the  party, 
and  to  express -willingness  to  sink  individual  views  to  maintain  p 
interests,  would  not  be  the  way  for  a  politician  in  thai   part   of  the 
world  to  recommend  himself  to  his  constituents.     A  colonial  si 
man  is  more  blunt  than  diplomatic.     True,  he  has  to  face  many 
combinations,  and  he  is  constantly  called  upon  to  reconcile  them 
by  the  exercise  of  more  or  less  tact.     But  indefinite  promises  and 
vague  postponements  will  not  meet  the  difficulties  with  which  he  has 
to  contend;  he  must  show  his  hand,  and  say  what  he  mean 
as  those  with  whom  he  deals  are  not  more  r<  .tical  i  : 

ances  have  a  robustness  which  at  times  degenera.  I 

freedom  of  language,  apt  to  surprise  public  m<  n  who  make  it  a  rule 
carefully  to  weigh  then-  words.     "With  this  freedom  are  associated  a 
certain  force  and  fluency  from  which  it  may  be  predicted  thai 
lonial  politicians  will  develop  into  vigorous,  capable  statesmt  n. 
reliant,  if  somewhat  wanting  in  refinement. 

The  Government  of  a  colony  is  very  near  to  the  people     Depu- 
tations are  a  recognized  and  frequent  means  of  enforcing  the  pop- 
ular will.     These  will  not  confide  their  grievances  to  subordinate 
servants  of  the  Government.     In  the  same  way.  parliai  u  atary  rep- 
resentatives have  to  submit  to  the  teachings  of  their  constitu 
who  in  turn  are  disposed  to  be  faithful  to  their  choi 
ber  is  reasonably  assiduous,  and  does  not  fall  a  victim  to      mi   burn- 
ing local  question  concerning  which  he   has   shown   b 
hearted,  he  may  look  upon  his  seat  as  a  tolerably 
a  series  of  years.     Colonial  constituencies  generally  appr  >ve  Balarii  d 
members.     They  take  the  plain  view  thai  they  have  no  righi  t 
pect  services  without  paying  for  them,  and  probably  tb  a  lit- 

tle impressed  with  the  idea  that  payment  gives  them  the  rigl 
free  criticism.     In  those  colonies  where  payment  of  members  does 
not  yet  prevail  there  is  a  strong  inclination  to  adopt   th< 
The  legislature  is  in  almost  every  case  compo  ed  of  two  b<  a  ■  ! 

the   upper  house  is  not  as  a  rule   the   popular  <>:. 


588  ENGLAND. 

wrongly,  it  is  suspected  that  the  members  of  this  branch  of  the  leg- 
islature favor  the  possession  of  large  estates,  and  make  it  their  busi- 
ness to  protect  the  interests  of  the  landowners.  Still,  with  excep- 
tions, the  two  houses  pull  well  together.  A  great  deal  depends  on 
the  tact  and  ability  of  the  governor,  who  is  nominated  by  the  Sov- 
ereign. An  able  governor  keeps  well  in  the  background,  and, 
avoiding  all  suspicion  of  interference,  quietly  exercises  a  salutary 
influence.  Greatly  to  the  credit  of  the  colonies,  they  attach  the 
highest  importance  to  education.  Their  public  educational  systems 
are  of  rare  excellence,  and  they  grudge  no  expense  in  maintaining 
them.  The  universal  feeling  is  that  no  child  should  grow  up  uned- 
ucated, whilst,  for  the  most  part,  a  purely  secular  system  is  in  favor. 
The  colonies  maintain  at  great  expense  charitable  institutions,  with- 
out, however,  admitting  any  special  legislation  for  paupers.  They 
deal  with  pauperism  as  though  its  nature  was  accidental,  and  the 
result  of  exceptional  misfortune.  It  is  no  part  of  their  belief  that 
one  section  of  the  people  has  the  right  to  look  for  constant  support 
from  another.  In  the  absence  of  intricate  vested  interests,  colonial 
legislation  is  more  prompt  and  thorough  than  in  the  home  country. 
At  times  there  is  a  danger  of  the  over-hasty  enactment  of  new  laws. 
Especial  importance  is  attached  to  local  government;  many  systems 
prevail,  and  the  details  are  widely  various.  But  every  colony  aims 
at  perfecting  its  own  system,  accommodating  it  to  its  own  peculiari- 
ties. Local  government  is  designed  on  very  broad  foundations. 
Cities,  towns,  boroughs,  road  districts,  hundreds,  shires,  and  coun- 
ties are  variously  included.  The  object  is  that  the  thinly  and  the 
thickly  populated  portions  of  the  country  should  alike  depend  for 
local  improvements  on  the  exertions  of  the  people  most  concerned, 
supplemented  by  such  assistance  as  Parliament  is  willing  to  give 
from  the  general  revenue.  The  excellence  of  their  local  institutions 
develops  in  the  people  a  capacity  for  office  that  infinitely  aids  the 
larger  object  of  colonial  self-government.  The  local  politician  wins 
his  way,  by  well-tried  service,  to  the  most  important  positions  in  the 
central  government.  The  ordinary  institutions  of  government  are 
closely  modeled  after  those  of  the  mother  country.  Sometimes  the 
models  are  improved  upon.  The  colonists  do  rapidly  what  they  de- 
sire; the  Queen's  Government,  equally  wishful,  has  to  defer  until 
various  interests  can  be  sufficiently  conciliated.  The  colonists  are 
vigorous;  if  they  think  that  legislation  is  required,  they  make  short 
work  of  opposing  forces,  effecting  in  a  session  as  much  as  would 
take  ten  years'  discussion  in  the  English  Parliament. 

Society  in  the  colonies  is  as  largely  divided  as  in  older  communi- 


IMPERIAL  LAND    AND    CONCLUSL 

ties.     There  are  sections  and  circles  and  cliques,  each  to  itself  a 
host.     Patrician  blood  and  old  family  associations  n  •..■,■)•   I 

a  certain  extent,  but  they  do  not  lead  Bociety.  Wealth,  especially 
the  wealth  represented  by  landed  possessions,  gives  to  its  own<  r, 
as  a  rule,  the  highest  consideration,  unless  associated  with  want 
of  education  or  want  of  character.  To  have  risen  by  personal 
industry  and  perseverance  is  no  bar  to  the  attainmenl  of  the 
highest  social  position.  Whatever  tendency  there  may  be  to  I  i 
formation  of  an  aristocracy  lies  in  the  direction  of  a  landed  aris- 
tocracy. Professional  men  and  merchants,  however,  are  held  in 
high  esteem. 

There  is  something  allied  to  contempt  felt  for  those  who  pose 
ing  a  certain  amount  of  education  and  without  a  special  occupation, 
are  only  lit  for  clerks  or  apj^ointments  in  the  Government  service. 
Persons  of  this  kind  swarm  in  the  colonies.  They  learn  to  envy  the 
men  who  have  to  depend  only  on  their  physical  strength.  For  in 
countries  where  labor  is  scarcely  less  valuable  than  capital,  manual 
exertion  commands,  as  might  be  expected,  more  respect  than  it  do 
in  crowded  communities.  That  the  laborer  to-day  should  be  his 
own  master  to-morrow,  and  a  few  years  later  a  rich  man,  excites 
no  surprise,  for  instances  of  the  kind  are  plentiful.  Politicians  and 
jniblic  men  do  not  necessarily  hold  high  social  positions.  It  can 
hardly  even  be  said  that  the  pursuit  of  politics  is  a  good  road  to 
social  eminence.  But  exceptions  must  be  made  of  the  really  suc- 
cessful public  men  who  show  marked  ability  and  high  character. 
Freedom  and  liberty  inspire  new  ideas,  and  create  a  thirst  for  in- 
formation. The  press  is  held  in  great  respect,  and  colonial  jour- 
nalism is  distinguished  by  much  ability.  Art,  the  drama,  and  music 
are  well  encouraged.  The  best  paid  "stars"  in  the  mother  country 
find  it  profitable  to  make  a  colonial  tour.  Colonists,  on  the  who] 
are  a  pleasure-loving  people.  Manly  sports  are  enthusiastically  pur- 
sued. Cricket,  football,  rowing,  boating,  hunting,  and  horse-racing 
are  as  much  venerated  in  the  distant  colonies  as  in  the  mot  coun- 
try; and  occasionally  colonial  competitors  show  they  are  able  to  take 
their  own  part  when  set  to  compete  with  the  champions  "1"  a  popu- 
lation one  hundred-fold  greater  than  them  own.  The  colonists  are 
law-abiding  and  law-loving  people.  Life  and  property  are  duly 
venerated.  Occasionally  there  are  exceptions  in^some  inland  vil- 
lage in  which  the  convict  taint  has  outlived  the  eradicating  influ- 
ences of  education;  but  the  rest  of  the  community  are  unsparing  in 
their  enmity  to  lawlessness.  Whenever  excesses  become  marked, 
they  are  hunted  down.     The  ringleaders  are  punished  with  extr<  me 


590  ENGLAND. 

severity,  whilst  those  who  secretly  sympathize  with  the  guilty  learn 
at  least  the  discretion  of  expediency.  It  is  seldom  one  hears  now 
of  the  bushranging  (as  highway  robbery  is  called)  which  was  once 
not  uncommon.  There  is  a  strong  disposition  to  support  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  law  courts.  Colonial  judges  are  generally  pos- 
sessed of  high  attainments  and  great  learning.  The  decisions  of 
colonial  courts  are  rarely  upset  on  appeal  to  the  Privy  Council;  the 
minor  courts  are  well  sustained.  In  some  respects  a  longing  eye 
may  be  cast  to  colonial  example.  In  many  colonies  there  are  public 
£>rosecutors,  whose  duty  it  is  to  redeem  criminal  prosecutions  from 
the  suspicion  of  being  used  for  the  exercise  of  private  vengeance  or 
the  extortion  of  civil  claims,  as  is  too  frequently  the  case  when  the 
criminal  law  is  put  into  force  by  private  individuals.  The  colonists, 
too,  do  not  as  a  rule  favor  unpaid  justices  of  the  peace.  Even  in 
thinly  populated  districts  they  are  disposed  to  employ  capable  sti- 
pendiary magistrates. 

"For  my  part,"  said  Burke,  in  his  speech  on  American  taxation, 
"  I  look  upon  the  imperial  rights  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  privileges 
which  the  colonists  ought  to  enjoy  under  those  rights,  to  be  just  the 
most  reconcilable  things  in  the  world.  The  Parliament  of  Great 
Britain  is  at  the  head  of  her  extensive  empire  in  two  capacities: 
one  as  the  local  legislature  of  this  island,  providing  for  all  things  at 
home  immediately,  and  by  no  other  instrument  than  the  executive 
power;  the  other,  and  I  think  her  nobler  capacity,  is  what  I  may 
call  her  imperial  character,  in  which,  as  from  the  throne  of  heaven, 
she  superintends  all  the  several  inferior  legislatures,  and  guides  and 
controls  them  all,  without  annihilating  any."  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  it  is  upon  the  degree  of  fidelity  with  which  the  mother 
country  fulfills  these  duties  towards  her  dependencies  that  her  tenure 
of  them  rests.  The  empire  of  Great  Britain  is«one  which,  having  its 
beginnings  in  the  fact  of  military  superiority,  finds  the  elements  of 
its  growth  and  strength  in  the  idea  of  moral  service  to  mankind, 
and  in  recognizing,  while  performing  this  service,  that  it  is  no  part 
of  English  duty  to  pose  as  a  militant  evangelist  before  the  world, 
or  to  embrace  every  opportunity  for  a  crusade  of  arms,  wherever 
there  may  arise  the  semblance  of  a  religious  or  imperial  sanction. 
The  problem  which  confronts  England  at  the  present  time  is  to  ad- 
minister her  empire  on  principles  that  are  in  consonance,  not  only 
with  the  national  instincts  of  Englishmen,  but  with  the  changed 
political  habits  of  the  race.  It  is  at  least  certain  that  no  analogy 
can  be  drawn  between  the  empire  of  England  and  any  other  em- 
pire that  ever  existed.     All  other  empires  have  been  based  upon  a 


IMPERIAL    ENGLAND    AND    CONCH 

despotism;  the  empire  of  England  alone  is  based  upon  6  | 

liberty. 

It  may  be  that  the  events  of  the  next  few  years  will  d  die 

imperial  future  of  this  country.     The  relations  thai 
Great  Britain  and  her  colonial  dependencies  may  be  Btren  I 

or  weakened,  may  ho  made  closer  or  more  distant,  but  can  scarcely 
remain  permanently  what  they  now  are.     As  it  is  ,-,t  present  coj 
tuted,  the  British  Empire  is  in  a  state  of  potential  elisor  Hon, 

and  the  chief  link  which  hinds  its  different  parts  together 
timent  of  patriotism   that  is  common  to  all    Englishmen     I- 
with  her  feudatory  princes  and  semi-independent  governments,  real- 
izes the  idea  of  empire  more  than  any  other  of  the  foreign   p 
sions  of  the  Crown,  hut  the  connection  between  England  and   [ndia 
is  unique.     For  the  rest,  the  British  Empire  in  its  political  and  mil- 
itary aspects  is  as  full  of  anomalies  and  contradictions  as  the  British 
Constitution.     The  absence  of  immediate  connection  between  the 
capital  of  the  empire  and  the  colony,  or  the  personal  views  of  a 
colonial  governor,  may  jriunge  the  mother  country  at  any  moment 
into  a  colonial  war,  for  which  it  is  unprepared,  and  of  which  the 
Home  Government  disapproves.     The  exigencies  of  British  Empire 
in  Europe  entail  a  war  in  Asia,  and  Parliament  is  unable  d<  finitely 
to  lis:  the  burden  of  payment  on  any  one  quarter.     It  is  consid 
that  British  interests  in  Europe  arc  jeopa  and  t! 

of  introducing  the  foreign  troops  of  the  Crown  to  an  island  in  the 
Mediterranean  is  canvassed  in  a  debate  that  raises  tin  c< in- 

stitutional issues.  A  dead-lock  ensues  in  the  political  lii 
Australasian  colony,  and  after  months  of  negotiation  with  the  <  ol- 
onial  Office  in  London  nothing  is  settled.  In  commercial  and  finan- 
cial affairs  the  same  chaotic  conditions  exist.  England  is  a  nation 
of  free  traders.  Yet  as  a  man's  worst  enemies  are  those  of  his  own 
household,  so  those  most  bitterly  opposed  to  free  trade  are  English 
subjects.  The  British  Empire  is  held  together  by  no  imperial  tariff, 
whilst  the  British  dependencies  impose  protective  duties  on  British 
exports,  so  heavy  as  sometimes  to  be  almost  prohibitive 

Such  is  the  actual  state  of  things,  and  such  are  the  tendencies 
which  this  state  of  things  discloses.  Sooner  or  later  it  is  inevitable 
that  these  tendencies  should  assert  themselves  in  a  definite  b) 

On  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  strong,  if  Bometimes  latent,  for 

resented  by  community  of  race,  language,  and  for  the  mosi   pari  oi 
religion;  on  the  other,  there  are  divergencies  ami  distraction 
almost  every  department  of  the  imperial  system:  which  of  these  two 
sets  of  powers  is  ultimately  to  accompli. ;h  itself?     [1  thai 


592  ENGLAND. 

events  outside  the  limits  of  the  British  Empire  are  destined  to  be 
instrumental  in  answering  this  question.  It  is  the  age  of  big  bat- 
talions and  colossal  armaments,  and  the  arbiter  of  Europe  is  he  who 
is  the  master  of  many  legions.  Moral  force  rests  upon  a  basis  of 
military  power,  and  no  diplomacy  is  successful  unless  it  is  prepared, 
in  the  last  resort,  to  use  the  strong  arm.  Free  trade  and  inter- 
national exhibitions  have  not  brought  the  millennium  appreciably 
nearer  to  mankind.  The  militaiw  spirit  was  never  stronger  in  En- 
gland than  to-day;  the  question,  What  must  England  do  to  retain 
her  traditional  place  in  the  nations  of  the  world?  never  more 
anxiously  discussed.  She  may  be  warned  against  pursuing  that 
inrjerial  policy  which  would  introduce  India  and  the  colonies  as 
elements  into  her  international  relations  in  Europe,  and  which 
would  teach  her  to  use  these  dependencies  as  recruiting  grounds  for 
her  imperial  army.  But  if  something  of  the  sort  be  not  done  En- 
gland may  at  any  moment  find  herself  in  the  position  of  an  island 
pitted  against  a  continent.  There  is  a  point  beyond  which  reliance 
cannot  be  placed  on  the  resources  of  the  smaller  England  at  home 
for  men  and  arms;  and  may  it  not  be  necessary  to  go  further  than 
this,  if  Englishmen  would  show  themselves  able  to  hold  their  own 
against  the  great  military  empires  of  Europe?  Organization  for 
such  an  end  as  this,  and  on  an  imperial  scale,  would  mean  a  mode 
of  imperial  federation;  and  if  the  same  spirit  animates  the  English 
race  in  all  parts  of  the  world  as  has  animated  it  in  other  ages,  it  is 
conceivable  that  England's  place  in  the  European  system  and  the 
exigencies  of  the  position,  may  force  her  to  the  choice  between  im- 
perial federation  and  subsidence  into  a  third-rate  power. 

There  is  much  in  the  temper  which  has  of  recent  years  been  dis- 
played both  in  England  and  in  her  colonies  to  justify  the  belief  that 
such  an  era  as  this  may  not  be  so  very  remote.  The  problem  will 
certainly  have  to  be  discussed  and  settled.  If  no  Royal  Commission 
is  heard  of,  specially  appointed  to  investigate  the  existing  relations 
between  those  various  parts  of  the  British  Empire  with  which  on 
principles  and  by  processes  widely  different,  England  has  extended 
her  area  and  influence,  the  hour  must  yet  come  when  those  relations 
wrll  be  considered  and  revised.  The  tune  and  its  necessities  may 
be  trusted  to  bring  the  statesmanship  which  they  require.  Events 
make  the  man,  and  it  will  be  for  the  statesman  of  the  future  to  assist 
in  the  development  or  destruction  of  the  imperial  idea.  Some  notion 
has  been  given  of  the  extent  and  capacity  of  England's  empire; 
what  will  England  do  with  it  ?  Will  the  English  democracy,  whose 
sovereignty  is  becoming  in  the  last  resort  paramount,  decide  that  it 


IMPERIAL    ENGLAND    AND    • 

dy  a  splendid  incumbrance,  or  recognize  thai  witi 
gland  berself  would  lose  her  historic  characti  r?     Da  thai  d<  i 
about  to  show  that,  no  more  than  others,  it  can  I 
from  the  reproach  of  fickleness?  or,  proving  itseli 
traditional  constancy  and  firmness  chari  tic  oi  the  i  ill  it 

give  assurance  that  though  supreme  power  may  have  found 
depositary,  the  manner  in  which  that  power  is  <.••.<  iv. 
changed? 


INDEX 


o>*i— 


Abolition  of  purchase:  arguments 
for  and  against,  442;  inevitable 
hardships  of,  412;  its  general  re- 
sults, 444,  445. 

Absenteeism:  of  the  squire,  9;  of 
the  rector,  16,  17;  its  evils  in  rural 
administration,  47. 

Accidents  on  railways,  258. 

Action,  a  necessity  of  social  dis- 
tinction, 318. 

Actor,  The,  and  acting.  (See  The 
Stage.  ) 

Administration  of  vast  estates,  28- 
42;  of  smaller  estates  generally, 
41,  42;  advantages  of  the  control 
of  a  superior  agent,  42;  adminis- 
tration of  commercial  business, 
130-140.  (For  Administration  of 
Government  offices,  Trade,  &c, 
see  under  different  beads. ) 

Admiralty,  The:  constitution  of  the 
Board,  437,  438;  its  unique  inde- 
pendence, 438;  the  Controller  and 
his  duties,  437,  438. 

Adulteration  of  manufactured  goods, 
its  enormous  harm,  128;  its  aban- 
donment a  national  necessity,  129. 

Agent,  The.    (See  The  Lank  Agent.  | 

Agricultural  area  of  England,  192; 
how  held,  192. 

Agricultural  capabilities  of  Great 
Britain,  Mr.  Caird  on,  191,  192. 

Agricultural  laborer:  the  suspicious 
nature  of,  13,  14;  the  modern  cot- 
tage, 174;  the  allotment,  174;  hours 
of  labor,  174;  diet,  174,  177,  178. 
His  career:  as  a  boy,  175,  176,  his 
knowledge  of  nature,  175,  bird- 
scaring  abolished,  176,  influence 
of  the  School  Boards,  175; 
man — arduous  duties  of  the  shep- 
herd,  carter,   milkman,    176,    the 


day-laborer,  17C  ITS,  aday'swoTk, 
177,  178,  pay  in  harvest-tune,  178, 
his  recreations,    L79.    Squal 
poachers,  and  idlers,  179,  180;  ill 
influence  of  the  beerhon 
his  dress,  180;  advantages  of  the 
co-operative  store,  180,  L81;  ei 
of  newspaper  reading,    182;   re- 
forms still  necessary    overcrowd- 
ing, sanitary  evils,  188  :  in- 
fluence    of     drink,     a     stri] 
example,  1S8;  the  si  itute  Eai 
evils,  189,  happily  dj  i 
women  as  field  laborers,  190,  191, 
Bishop  Fraser's  e:  L90, 
satisfactory  exam]              .  North- 
umberland,   190,    191;   hiring   by 
families,    curious   insl 
agricultural  wages,  194   !' 
cial  instances  of,  "ii  a 
throughout    Bd gland,     L95, 
value  of  milk  diet  in   V 
berland  195  ( / 
condition   of,     L96,    cheap 
necessaries,  196,                        ink- 
enness,   196;   intelligence 
Northumberland     pea      t,      I'.'T; 
beneticial  < 
of  1834,  197,  198; 
Union,  l'.ts,    I'.i'.t;  his  tolei 
the  farmer,  199;  prosp  the 
peasant  and  i  Hi  cl  i  of  education, 
199,  20                   of  co-op 
at  A            m,  236,  287. 

Agricultural  anions:  objections  t". 
20;    ill-ad"?  ised    am     ion 
by    them    throu  jh    BJ 
Mitchell,    20;    their   action 
defed  .  L98,  L99. 

Agricultural  wa 

Aldermen:    their   .1        .    64;    pro- 
vincial aldermen,  70. 


596 


INDEX. 


Allotment,  The,  174;  Dr.  Fraser 
on,  187 ;  a  garden  preferable, 
187. 

Amsterdam,  once  the  international 
clearing  -  house,  as  London  now 
is,  114. 

Amusements,  Popular:  change  of, 
in  recent  years,  512;  decease  of 
the  showman,  543;  influenc*1  of 
railway  communication,  544,  the 
excursion  train,  a  scene  on  the 
Norfolk  coast,  544.  545;  greater 
opportunities  of  recreation  in  the 
northern  counties,  545,  54(j;  Lon- 
don recreations,  546,  547;  the 
music-ball,  its  influences  for  good 
and  evil,  547;  higher  amusements, 
the  museum,  the  library,  547;  the 
working-man's  club,  its  constitu- 
tion and  aims,  547,  548,  its  aspect 
described,  548,  549,  expected  ben- 
eficial result,  549;  the  drama,  550, 
the  theater  and  its  supporters, 
"old  and  new,"  550,  551,  general 
features  and  aims  of  the  modern 
stage,  551-555. 

Analysis,  Triumph  of,  in  the  pres- 
ent age,  502. 

Arbitration:  beneficial  result  of, 
167,  168;  special  instances  in  the 
Cleveland  district,  285;  Mr.  Mun- 
della's  early  advocacy  of,  167; 
the  masons'  strike  of  1S77,  168. 

Archdeacon,  The,  and  his  functions, 
463,  464. 

Architecture  of  the  day,  517,  518. 

Archives,  Variety  and  extent  of,  in 
a  vast  estate,  39,  40. 

Area  of  England,  Agricultural,  192; 
how  held,  192. 

Aristocracy,  The:  "change"  its 
habit,  302,  303;  a  squire  of  the 
old  school  and  of  the  new,  303- 
305;  recent  rush  of,  into  com- 
merce, 311,  312,  value  of  primo- 
geniture, 312;  our  nobility  are 
not  "noblesse,"  312,  exclusive- 
ness  of  the  "noblesse,"  in  Aus- 
tria, Princess  Esterhazy  an  in- 
stance, 312,  313,  contrasted  with 
English  society,  313,  314;  asso- 
ciation of  diverse  ranks  in  English 
society,  314,  its  necessary  outcome, 
reserve,  313;  precedence  in  En- 
gland,   with    instances,    314-316; 


stimulated  to  action  by  the  Re- 
form Bill,  318;  their  avocations, 
318,  319,  power  in  politics  in  past 
times  and  present  influence,  326- 
328;  influence  of  rank,  328;  lev- 
eling up  of  the  middle  classes, 
328;  large  share  in  present  Minis- 
try, 328,  329;  decrease  of  num- 
ber in  the  House  of  Commons, 
381;  elements  of  its  perpetuation, 
406;  its  influence  and  authority 
in  the  Parliament,  407,  408;  its 
inclination  to  the  Church  of 
Rome,  474. 

Army,  The:  exceptional  social  rank 
of  the  officer,  324;  numerous  ap- 
peals to  the  War  Minister,  368; 
army  administration,  the  War 
Office,  439;  difficulties  presented, 
439,  440;  recent  reforms,  concen- 
tration, 440,  its  advantages,  441; 
supremacy  of  the  Secretary  for 
War,  441;  functions  of  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, 441;  abolition 
of  purchase,  arguments  for  and 
against,  442,  443,  necessary  hard- 
ships, 442,  absolute  result,  class 
as  good,  acquirements  greater, 
444;  introduction  of  short  ser- 
vice, 444,  445,  disadvantages  of, 
445;  recruiting,  its  procedure  and 
safeguards,  446,  447;  education 
of  the  soldier,  446,  447;  effects  of 
discipline,  447;  advantages  of  the 
service,  447;  merits  and  defects 
of  rank  and  file,  448;  insufficiency 
of  the  forces  for  imperial  duties, 
448;  the  militia,  its  importance 
and  growing  estimation  of,  448, 
449;  volunteers,  their  origin,  449, 
450,  aeal,  449,  and  importance 
450;  the  reserves,  450;  the  staff, 
450;  military  strength,  450,  451; 
equipments,  451;  its  aspects  as  a 
profession,  572,  573;  the  officer  of 
to-day  a  professed  soldier,  and  ad- 
vantages, 572;  pay  and  expendi- 
ture, 573. 

Army  and  Navy  Co-operative  So- 
ciety, The:  its  aspect  and  opera- 
tions, 222,  223 ;  compared  with 
the  Rochdale  store,  222,  225,  226; 
its  progress,  232;  its  manufacto- 
ries and  benefits  accruing  there- 
from, 233. 


INDEX. 


Arnold,  Mr.  Matthew:  his  theology, 
459;  his  influence  on  religious  and 
esthetic  thought,  528;  his  writings, 
629. 

Artisan,  The:  the  policy  of  the  mem- 
ber of  Parliament  towards  deiined, 
74;  predominance  of  working  men 
iu  large  towns,  84,  85;  advanced 
propaganda,  the  Eleusis  Club,  142, 
143;  types  of ,  143,  144;  abundance 
of  the  better  class,  144;  his  virtues 
and  vices,  144;  his  instinct  con- 
servatism, 144;  his  view  of  state 
emoluments,  144,  145;  compared 
with  the  French  and  American 
workman,  145,  14G;  his  relation 
to  the  State  contrasted  with  that 
of  these,  145,  146;  his  moderation, 
164;  trades  unions  and  their  in- 
fluence, 166-169;  beneficial  results 
of  arbitration,  167-169;  the  ma- 
sons' strike  of  1877,  168;  political 
bias  of,  169;  as  members  of  Parlia- 
ment, 169,  170;  the  London  and 
provincial  artisan  contrasted,  sec- 
ularism of  the  former,  170,  his 
habits  and  recreations,  169,  170, 
his  difficulties  in  co-operation,  171, 
points  of  difference  and  causes 
thereof,  171,  Sunday  dinner,  172. 

Arts  and  Artists.  (See  Cultuee, 
Painting,  and  Music.) 

'•Assington  experiment,  The":  suc- 
cess of,  in  agriculture,  236,  237. 

Attorney,  The:  social  status  of,  322, 
323. 

Austin,  Mr.  Alfred,  as  a  poet,  531, 
532;  "  The  Human  Tragedy/'  531, 
53  2. 

Author,  The:  exceptional  social  sta- 
tus of,  and  its  reasons,  322,  324. 
(See  also  Liteeatuee.) 

Eagehot,  Me.  "Waltee:  on  the  new 
and  old  constitution,  342;  on  the 
relations  of  Queen  and  Cabinet, 
and  the  Cabinet  and  people,  35i, 
on  the  vast  prerogatives  of  the 
Queen,  352,  353;  his  contrasts  of 
republic  and  monarchy,  354. 
Bailiff,  The.  (See  Tee  Land  Agent.  ) 
Baiu,  Mr.  Alexander:  his  contri- 
butions to  philosophy,  497-499; 
his  method,  497,  499;  John  Stuart 
Mill  on  his  method,  498. 


Bank  of  England    [\ 
exceptional  functions,  LIB; 
lation  to  other  ba  ..ill. 

Banking-house,  A:  i 

of  bui  b  mo- 

tions "f  the  partnei  .  L35,  LS  '.  the 
managing  partn<  r,  I  I »;  th<   •. 
cial  pari 

heads  of  depai  I  136,  L87;  a 

bankin.  and   a   bank   • 

treated,  L37;  fund  the  for- 

mer, L37;  estimate  ol  capital  em- 
ployed,   138;    necessity   to  \\ 
the of  politics,  !:'■'.». 

Banks  and  ag.    (See  Pa  \Si  i  \n 

England  and  Baj 

Baptists,  The.  (See  .v  - 

Bar,  Tin  :  exceptional  social  rank  of 
the  barrister,  and  ri  i  r  it, 

3^-324;  Queen's  counsel,  "silk" 
and  "stuff,"  419;  value  of  uni- 
versity "honoi 

pects  and  Lnc i  of  Hie  profes- 
sion, 565,  566. 

Barrister.  The.     (S  Bab.) 

Bath,  iis  beaul  '■      L02, 

BeacoiiStield,  Lord,  his  reception  by 
the  mas  sribed,  341. 

Bedford,   Duke  of:  feudal  customs 
at  Woburn  Abbey,  29. 

Benefit  Society,  The  village,  1  ' 

Betting,  Evils  of,  in  Sheffield,  83, 84. 

Bicycle,  The:  its  advi  .  -    J;  at 

Bushey  Park,  268. 

Biography  and  travel,  536,  637;  Mr. 
Treveh  ! . 

Mr.  Suns'  "Life  of  Lessing,"  ! 
537. 

Birmingham:  primitive  o 
97;  contrasted  with 
98;uui\>  .  ality  of  il    pri    I   ■ 
social  reorganization   and 
by  its  ladies,  98. 

Bishop,  The:  his  relation  to  thi 
thedral,  !•■  •:  I  ion,  466. 

Black,  Mr.,  as  a  Doveli 

Black   Country,    The  :    i  Btil] 

extant  in.  159, 

Blackmore,  Mr.. 

Block  Bystem  on  railw  :  il ; 

working  explain* 

Board  of  Guardians.     (I  ^kd- 

ians.) 

Board   Schools.      (See   'I'm:  Scno<>n 

BOAED. ) 


598 


LVD  EX. 


Board  of  Trade,  The,  and  its  duties,  ! 
362. 

Borough  magistrates.  (See  Magis- 
trates. ) 

Br  addon,  Miss,  as  a  novelist,  535. 

Bradford.     (See  Yorkshire.) 

Brick-yards:  necessity  for  legislation 
in,  152;  evidence  of  Mr.  George 
Smith,  152. 

Bright,  Mr.  John,  as  an  orator,  395. 

Bristol,  101. 

Broad  Church,  The.  (See  The 
Chtjhch  of  England.) 

Brougham,  Lord:  his  early  advocacy 
of  national  education,  276;  char- 
acteristic contemporary  opposition 
to  it,  276. 

Broughton,  Khoda,  as  a  novelist, 
535. 

Browning,  Mr.,  as  a  poet,  530. 

Bureaux  de  Bienfaisance,  their  op- 
erations, 214. 

Burglar,  Operations  of  a  practiced, 
242. 

Burial  Boards,  56. 

Burne  Jones,  Mr.,  as  an  artist,  513, 
514. 

Buxton :  restrictions  in  building  im- 
posed by  the  Duke  of  Devonshire, 
39;  as  a  watering-place,  its  special 
attractions,  109. 

Cabinet  Council,  The :  a  meeting  of, 
364,  365;  its  procedure  in  legisla- 
tion described,  365. 

Cabs.  London,  265. 

Cahill,  Dr.,  testimony  to  the  field 
employment  of  women,  190,  191. 

Caird,  Mr.,  on  the  agricultural  capa- 
bilities of  England,  191,  192. 

Canal  Population,  Need  of  legisla- 
tion for,  152. 

Canterbury,  102. 

Capital,  estimate  of  amount  used  in 
large  businesses,  137,  138. 

Carlton  Club,  The,  334. 

Car] vie,  Thomas:  his  bias  for  Ger- 
man philosophy,  503;  as  a  writer, 
503;  influence  of  his  writings  in 
the  present  day,  539. 

Casual  ward,  The,  its  inmates  and 
operations,  201. 

Cathedral  and  chapter,  The:  the 
dean  and  his  office,  465;  the  canons, 
465;  relation  of  the  bishop  to,  465. 


Cathedral  city,  The:  its  aspect,  99; 
the  close  and  its  denizens,  100, 
101,  its  social  life,  "Mrs.  Prou- 
die,"  101. 

Caucus,  The:  its  introduction  into 
England,  343;  its  aims,  uses,  and 
evils,  343-347;  Mr.  Chamberlain 
upon  it,  343;  "the  six  hundred," 
313;  its  aspect  in  the  United  States, 
344. 

Challenaer  Expedition,  Besidts  of 
the,  523. 

Chamberlain,  Mr.  Joseph:  on  the 
Caucus,  343;  on  the  perfection  of 
the  polity  of  the  United  States, 
344. 

Chambers  of  commerce,  73;  influ- 
ence wielded  by  members  of  Par- 
liament over  their  action,  73. 

Charity:  treatment  of  charitable  ap- 
plications bv  great  landowners,  27. 

Cheltenham,  102,  103. 

Chemistiy  as  a  profession,  563. 

Children:  State  protection  of,  146; 
birth  in  workhouse  no  disadvan- 
tage to  the  lowest  classes,  202; 
career  of  the  youthful  criminal, 
241 ;  the  clever  boy,  accidental 
nature  of  his  education  under  old 
system,  272,  273,  advantages  now 
offered,  273;  effect  of  changed  so- 
cial life  on  parents  and  children, 
305,  306;  predilection  for  the  sea 
and  advantages  offered  by  a  naval 
career,  432. 

Church  of  England  (see  also  The 
Rector):  influence  in  parish  af- 
fairs, 9;  results  of  the  agitation 
of  Dissent,  20-22;  allowably  pref- 
erable in  rural  districts,  21,  its 
influence  in,  23;  responsibility  of 
its  defense  lies  with  the  clergy,  21; 
necessity  of  tolerance  and  common 
sense,  18,  example  of  effect  of  tol- 
erance, 24;  procedure  in  ecclesi- 
astical courts,  426-429;  its  numer- 
ous sects  analogous  in  this  respect 
to  the  Komish  faith  and  Noncon- 
formity, 454;  statistics  of  services 
in  London,  455,  other  signs  of 
external  activity,  455;  her  spirit- 
ual life,  456;  inspiration  and  other 
questions  of  the  day  and  issues  in- 
volved, 456.  The  Broad  Church: 
Dean  Stanley  on  the  progress  of 


INDEX. 


theology,  457,  on  science  and  re- 
ligion, 458;  theology  and  religion, 

458;  science  and  religion,  difficul- 
ties of  reconcilement,  458;  Mr. 
Jowctt's  theology,  458;  Mr,  M. 
Arnold's  theology,  459.  The  High 
Church:  459,  460;  Canon  Liddon, 
4G1;  common,  aspect  of  ritualism, 
459;  some  of  its  peculiarities,  460; 
its  occasional  disregard  of  culture, 
4(50;  its  attractions,  461.  The  Low 
Church:  tendency  and  vitality  of 
Evangelicalism,  461,  462.  Tithes, 
462;  Queen  Anne's  bounty,  463; 
the  archdeacon  and  his  functions, 
463,  464;  the  churchwarden,  464; 
the  cathedral  and  chapter,  the 
dean  and  his  office,  465,  the  can- 
ons, 465,  relation  of  the  bishop 
to,  465,  election  of  a  bishop,  466; 
the  rural  dean  and  his  office,  465; 
patronage,  sale  of  advowsons  and 
next  presentations,  466. 

Church  of  Rome,  The:  a  mission- 
ary organization  directed  by  the 
congregation  of  the  Propaganda, 
473;  establishment  of  the  English 
hierarchy,  473:  organization  and 
rank  of  the  clergy,  473;  its  pres- 
ent influence  not  advancing  ex- 
cept amongst  the  aristocracy,  474; 
failure  to  establish  the  Catholic 
University,  474. 

Churchwarden,  The,  464. 

City  Corporation,  The,  75. 

City  guilds:  their  estates  and  their 
management,  41. 

Civil  engineering:  its  attractions,  563; 
youthful  predilection  for,  563. 

Civil  Service  Co-operative  Society: 
its  origin,  progress,  and  organiza- 
tion, 232. 

Civil  Service  Supply  Association : 
the  difficulties  of  membership, 
225;  its  origin  and  progress,  229, 
230;  organization,  230,  231;  asso- 
ciated tradesmen,  231;  extent  of 
its  operations,  231;  treatment  of 
profits,  231. 

Clergy,  The:  exceptional  social  sta- 
tus of,  and  its  cause,  322-324.  (See 
also  The  Rector  and  The  Church 
of  England). 

Cleveland,  Duke  of:  organization  of 
his  estates  at  Darlington,  34,  35; 


at  Baby  Castle,  '     sription 

of  the  pr  »perty,  84,  8  i 
and  beneficial  change  to  p 

35;  work.!.- 

86;  metho  I  of  Beouring  roj 
mines,  o7. 

Clifton,  103. 

Club,  The:  olub  life  in  Manch 
and   Liverpool,  93,  94  ;  olub 
in  Loudon,  its  political  influence, 
331;  its  conditions  and  exp  ase, 
332;  advantages  of  membership, 
332;  types  of  habitues,  3 
diverse  customs  prevalent,  333;  po- 
litical clubs,  :'>.•;:>,  334;  the  Carlton 
and   Reform,   334.   unwise  ac 
of,  333;  the  working-man's  club 
— its  constitution,    anus,   and   oc- 
cupations, ol7  ">19,   its  literal 
548,  its  aspect  described,  648, 
expected  beneficial  result  of,  549. 

Coleridge,  the  introducer  of  Ger 
philosophy,  503,  504. 

Collins,  Mr.  Wilkie,   as  a  novelist, 
533. 

Colonial  Office,  The:  its  administra- 
tion described,  the  Regis!  ry  *  Office, 
356;  duties  of  the    . 
manent,   and    I  tentary 

der-Secretaries,  357.  358,  co-ordi- 
nate power  of  the  tw<  i 
work   of   the  Colonial   Minister, 
358,  359. 

Colonies  and  the  colonists:  pros] 
for  the  university  graduate  in,  566; 
necessity  to  foster  emigrati*  in,  I 
prospects  of  the  colonies,  581;  r  - 
quirements  of  the  emigrant, 
582;  Crown  dependencies  and 
governing  colonies,  5N1 :  i 
British  possessions  in   temp 
regions,  581;  financial 
the  State  and  colonies,  582;  extent 
of  trade  with,  582;  patriotism  of, 
5S3;  th<  bed  fed 

the  State  and  thi 
Burke  thereon,  590;  I 
hesion,  ten- 

sion of  privileges  b  turea 

tutions,  their  Qi 

nSC;  supremacy  of  d(  I 

586;  political  government, 

position  and  policy  ol  I 
or,  588;  Bocial  I 


600 


INDEX. 


to  consideration  in,  589;  respect 
for  law,  589;  colonial  judges,  590; 
supremacy  of  physical  power  in, 
589;  the  future  of  England  in  re- 
lation to,  591,  592. 

Commander  -  in  -  Chief.  ( See  The 
Army.) 

Commercial  administration :  central- 
ization of  authority  in,  130;  typ- 
ical illustrations  of — the  cotton 
mill:  process  of  manufacture,  130, 

131,  purchase  of  raw  cotton,  139, 

132,  sale  of  cloth,  131,  organiza- 
tion of  the  factory,  131,  of  the 
warehouse,  131,  the  managing 
partner,  his  functions  and  con- 
trol, 132.  An  iron  works:  its  as- 
pect, 132,  oi'ganization  in  the 
works,  133,  at  the  mines,  133, 
"the  puddler,"  131,  sale  of  the 
iron,  134,  the  managing  partner, 
his  functions  and  control,  134,  135. 
A  banking-house:  its  aspect,  135, 
process  of  business  in,  135,  func- 
tions of  the  partners,  135,  13G, 
the  managing  partner,  135,  the 
financial  partner,  135,  its  organi- 
zation, heads  of  departments,  136, 
137.  A  banking-house  and  a  bank 
contrasted,  137,  functions  of  the 
former,  137 ;  amount  of  capital  en- 
gaged in  large  businesses,  138 ; 
custom  of  delegated  authority  to 
one  partner,  138,  139 ;  needful 
watchfulness  of  the  course  of  pol- 
itics, 139;  advantages  of  rich  con- 
cerns, 139;  the  gradual  process  of 
their  construction,  140. 

Commercial  England  (see  also  Fi- 
nancial England  and  Commercial 
Administration)  :  London  the  cen- 
ter of  commerce,  110;  causes  of 
depression  and  inflation  of  trade, 
110,  111;  cosmopolitan  and  gradual 
development  of  trade,  112;  rami- 
fications of,  110-112;  commerce 
the  first  essential  of  prosperity, 
120,  121;  our  advantages  in  enter- 
prise and  skilled  labor,  120,  121, 
in  accumulated  capital,  121,  122, 
in  free  imports,  122;  benefits  ac- 
cruing from  manufacturing,  121; 
the  textile  trade,  121;  inseparable 
connection  with  banking,  122;  past 
prosperity  and  present  depression, 


123,  124,  overtrading,  124,  excess 
of  imports — its  caxises,  124,  125, 
its  lesson,  125,  126,  the  new  theory 
of,  124,  necessity  of  some  stay  in, 
126,  increase  of  luxury,  126,  new 
fields  of  enterprise,  127,  effects  of 
the  public-house,  128,  reasons  for 
hopefulness,  128;  values,  not  vol- 
ume, of  trade  decreased,  128;  prob- 
able competition  from  the  United 
States,  128,  from  India,  128;  evils  of 
adulteration,  128,  its  abandonment 
a  necessity,  129;  capital  engaged 
in,  137,  138;  necessary  watchful- 
ness of  politics,  139;  railway  ex- 
penditure and  income,  258;  recent 
influx  of  the  aristocracy,  311,  312; 
its  prospects  and  lessened  attrac- 
tions as  a  career,  567;  extent  of 
trade  with  the  colonies,  582. 

Commercial  Towns.  (See  Towns  of 
Business.  ) 

Commissioner,  The.  (See  The  Land 
Agent.  ) 

Common  sense:  necessity  of,  in  re- 
ligious matters,  18;  the  Scotch 
philosophical  school  of,  484. 

Commoner,  The:  social  advantages 
possessed  by,  317;  exceptional  so- 
cial rank  sometimes  achieved,  317. 

Competition  in  trade,  Prospects  of, 
128;  from  the  United  States,  128; 
from  India,  128. 

Competitive  examination,  286,  287; 
the  "  crammer,"  287;  inducements 
held  out  to  university  graduates, 
287. 

Compstall  (Cheshire),  a  model  man- 
ufacturing village,  87. 

Compulsory  education,  how  en- 
forced, 274;  early  objections  to, 
275;  its  strangeness  to  the  English- 
man, 275;  practical  beneficial  re- 
sults of,  275. 

Comte,  Auguste:  his  Positivist  doc- 
trines and  their  influence  on  En- 
glish philosophy,  485 ;  G.  H. 
Lewes's  tribute  to,  487. 

Congregationaiists,  or  Independ- 
ents.    (See  Nonconformity.) 

Conservative  Club,  The:  unwise  po- 
litical action  of,  333. 

Conservatives,  The:  conservatism  of 
the  working  man,  144;  treatment 
of  the  rank  and  file  by  the  lead- 


IXDF.X. 


ers,  334;  their  organization,  345; 
prevalence  of,  in  the  Upper  ii 
407. 

Constitutional  monarchy  (see  also 
The  Ceown),  its  real  position  de- 
fined, 347;  the  guarantees  of  its 
stability,  348,  349,  352. 

Controller  of  the  Navy,  The,  his 
special  duties,  437,  438. 

vict.    The.     (See    Peison    and 
Prisoners.  ) 

Co-operation:  the  village  co-opera- 
tive store;  its  introduction  and 
advantages,  181,  an  example,  181, 
beneficial  sale  of  beer  by,  181;  its 
incitement  to  thrift,  220;  Roch- 
dale and  London:  the  Rochdale 
Pioneers,  222,  224,  225,  the  Army 
and  Navy  Stores,  222,  223,  Lon- 
don and  Rochdale  stores  con- 
trasted, 225,  226;  Civil  Service 
Supply  Association:  difficulties  of 
membership,  225,  its  origin,  prog- 
ress, and  organization,  229-232, 
its  associated  tradesmen,  231,  ex- 
tent of  its  operations,  231,  its 
profits,  231 ;  the  Co-operative 
Wholesale  Society,  229;  the  Civil 
Service  Co-operative  Society,  232; 
the  Army  and  Navy  Co-operative 
Society :  its  progress,  manufac- 
tures, and  operations,  232,  233; 
spuriousness  of  many  associations, 
225;  advantages  of- co-operation  to 
the  higher  classes,  226,  to  the 
working  classes,  225,  226,  234,  235; 
Mr.  Jacob  Holyoake  thereon,  234; 
effect  of  enthusiasm  on  co-opera- 
tion, 227;  Owen's  failure  and  rea- 
sons, 227;  its  claim  to  higher  aims, 
228;  its  educational  value,  235;  its 
prospects,  235,  236;  general  bene- 
fits of  the  movement,  237;  the 
"Assington"  agricultural  co-op- 
eration, and  its  success,  236,  237. 

Co  -  operative  Wholesale  Society, 
Operations  of  the,  229. 

Corporate  bodies,  Advantages  of 
tenancy  under,  194. 

Cottage,  The:  the  modern  cottage, 
174;  overcrowding,  need  of  in- 
crease in  number,  183;  small  re- 
turns on  capital,  186. 

Cotton-mill,  The :  description  of, 
87-89;  a  day's  toil  at,  88,  89;  pro- 


pin 

of  oloth,  i:ii.  L82;  o 

the  factory,  L81,  L82;  in  the  wi 

house,    131,    i    ■ 

partner,    his   fanotdona  and   i 

fcrol,   L32;  estimate  of  capital  ■ 

ployed,  137,  L88. 

Country  hoi  e  modern,  805; 

constituents  of  Bocial  life  in, 
331;  disappearance  of  "the  wit," 
331. 

Country     town,     The.  I'm: 

Town.  ) 

County  Court,  The,  424   L26;  facili- 
ti<  s  offered  to  124;  a  rep- 

resentative case,  "servant  r>.  em- 
ployer," 423-426;  its  aspect  and 
procedure,  121.   !:.">;   ivpi.-al  ei 
in,  425,  126;  appeals  from,  L2 

County  suffrage,  Possible  r< 
408. 

Court,  The.     (See  The  Cbown.) 

"Crammer,"  The,  287. 

Crime:  difficulties  in  estimating  its 
origin  and  extent,   238,  239;  im- 
provement in  legislation,  239;  evils 
of  transportation,  240;  prevention 
and  its  difficulties,  240,  •_".  1 :  bene- 
fits of  reformatories  and  industrial 
schools,  241;  career  of  the  youth- 
ful criminal,  241;  of  theadult,  242; 
the   burglar,    241,    242;   recoil 
and  their  frequent  immunity,  ll\l\ 
criminals  from  the  middle  phi 
and    causes    of   crime,    211,    245; 
brutal  crimes,  245;  the  pi 
crime:   their   career   (meed.    5 
247;  its  similarity,  246;  operations 
of    the   police,  '217  250,    defects 
and  merits  of,  247,   the  detect 
248-250,    improvement     in, 
prosecution    of    a    prisoner    the 
process,  251;  effects  of  the  Pri 
Act  of  1877,  251,  252,   treatment 
of  the  ordinary  prisoner  and  of 
the  convict.   252  254;  dischai 
prisoners   and    the    Aid    E 
255;  decrease  of,  through  educa- 
tion   BtatL  tie  .   281,   ^  heft 

from  the   person."  pro lure   in, 

412-416;  Dr.  Maudaley  on  evolu- 
tion of  crime.  491, 

Criticism.      (See  Cl  i  i>  i;i:  and   1 
EBATUKB.) 


602 


INDEX. 


Crown,  The :  disposition  of  the 
masses  to  accept  political  situa- 
tion, 338,  339 ;  enthusiasm  for 
royalty,  339,  340;  docility  of  the 
modern  "firebrand,"  340;  ovations 
to  ministers,  340,  341;  the  great 
leaders  described,  341;  Mr.  Bage- 
hot  on  the  new  and  old  constitu- 
tion, 342;  Lord  Derby  on  the  re- 
lation of  the  Government  to  the 
masses,  "employers  and  em- 
ployed," 347;  supremacy  of  the 
democratic  polity,  347;  constitu- 
tional monarchy,  its  real  aspect 
defined,  347;  checks  on  democracy, 
348;  guarantees  of  the  stabilitv  of 
the  Constitution,  348,  349,  352; 
Mr.  Bagehot  on  the  relations  of 
So-vereign  to  Cabinet,  and  of  Par- 
liament to  the  masses,  351,  352; 
the  presidential  system  a  tempo- 
rary despotism,  351;  approxima- 
tion of  classes  in  Government, 
and  influences  at  work,  352;  the 
Queen's  prerogative,  its  vastness, 
but  limited  use,  352,  353;  Mr. 
Bagehot  thereon,  352,  353;  ser- 
vices of  a  Sovereign,  353,  and  of 
a  court,  353;  monarchy  and  re- 
public contrasted  by  Mr.  Bagehot, 
354;  a  Privy  Council  meeting  de- 
scribed, 363,  the  Premier  and  the 
Sovereign,  363,  364,  method  of 
communication  from  ministers  to 
the  Queen  described,  364,  365; 
probable  results  of  county  suf- 
frage, 408,  409,  possible  difficul- 
ties in  strife  between  classes,  409; 
possible  national  calamities,  409, 
410;  secure  tenure  of  the  Crown, 
409, 410;  patriotism  of  the  colonies, 
583;  the  suggested  federation  of 
the  colonies,  583;  the  different 
power  of  democracy  in  the  col- 
onies, at  home,  and  in  the  Crown 
dependencies,  5S6;  the  present 
and  future  of  Eu  gland,  590-593, 
specially  in  relation  to  the  col- 
onies, 591,  592. 

Crown  dependencies,  581;  absence 
of  democratic  feehng  in,  586. 

Culture  (see  also  Paxstt:lxg,  Music, 
Literateee,  and  Science),  estheti- 
cism  in  modern  houses,  506-508;  a 
eex  in  taste,  feminity  of  the  period 


in  decorations  and  literature,  507; 
debt  of  art  to  Prince  Consort, 
508,  to  Buskin,  509;  School  of 
Art,  South  Kensington,  509;  es- 
theticism  in  female  dress  and  rec- 
reations, 510,  511;  art  criticism: 
Mr.  Buskin,  Mr.  Hamerton,  Mr. 
Pater,  Mr.  Augustus  Hare,  516; 
art  patronage,  517;  the  State  and 
art,  517,  schools  of  design,  517; 
rapid  spread  of  musical  culture, 
518;  influence  of  Matthew  Ar- 
nold and  Max  Muller  on  es- 
thetic thought,  528;  summary  of 
the  results  of  culture,  527,  528. 

Dairy  farms,  Increase  in  number 
of,  193. 

Darwin:  philosophy  of,  501,  502; 
"Origin  of  Species,"  501;  his 
theory  of  evolution  and  its  wide 
influence,  502. 

Democracy:  its  part  in  the  structure 
of  society,  310;  a  democratic  pol- 
ity now  established,  347;  checks 
upon  democracy,  348;  its  force, 
•first,  in  the  colonies,  secondly,  at 
home,  thirdly,  in  the  Crown  de- 
pendencies, 586;  what  use  will  it 
make  of  its  power  ?  592,  593. 

Depression  and  inflation  in  trade, 
causes  of,  111,  123,  124,  127-129. 

Derby,  Lord,  on  the  Ministry  and 
the  masses,  "employer  and  em- 
ployed," 347,  348. 

Design,  schools  of,  517. 

Devonshire,  Duke  of :  works  at 
Chatsworth,  38;  customs  on  the 
Devonshire  estates,  38,  39;  farms 
let  on  annual  agreement  and  re- 
valuation, 38,  comparative  fixiry 
of  tenure,  38,  organization  of,  39; 
restrictions  on  building  at  Bux- 
ton and  Eastbourne,  39. 

Diet  of  the  rural  laborer,  174-177; 
the  milk  diet  in  Northumberland, 
195. 

Diplomacy:  as  a  profession,  571; 
necessity  of  wealth  and  position 
to  its  followers,  571;  its  peculiari- 
ties, 571;  diplomatic  establish- 
ment (See  Foreign  Office.) 

Discharged  Prisoners'  Aid  Society, 
Beneficial  operations  of,  255. 

Dissent.     (See  NoNCONFOFviiiTT. ) 


INI 


Diversity  of  the  working  classes,  a1 

guarantee  of  order,  142,  143. 
Doc- tor,    The.     (See   The   Medioai 

Profession.  ) 
Dod  on  precedence,  314. 
Domesticity:  effects  of  changed  so- 

oial  life  on,  305,  300;  fashionable 

parents   and    children,    305,    300; 

present    feminine   independence, 

307. 
Drama,  The.     (See  The  Stage.) 
Du  Manrier,  Mr.,  as  an  artist,  519; 

"  the  music  of  the  future,"  519. 
Durham,  101. 


RT1  Ir- 


an 


Englishman's 


Earnestness    of 
pursuits,  319. 

Eastbourne:  the  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire's properties  there,  32;  his 
restrictions  on  building,  39. 

Ecclesiastical  Commissioners,  The: 
are  the  largest  landowners,  40; 
management  of  their  estates,  41. 

Ecclesiastical  courts,  The  procedure 
in,  426-429. 

Economy  of  force,  a  feature  of  the 
present  age,  5,  6. 

Education  (See  also  School  Boards, 
Universities,  and  Schools):  the 
village  school  and  its  advantages, 
173;  prospective  effect  on  the 
peasant,  199,  200;  benefits  derived 
from  co-operation,  235;  the  clever 
boy:  accidental  method  of  his  ad- 
vancement under  the  old  system, 
272,  273,  his  patrons,  273,  advan- 
tages now  offered,  273,  274,  the 
School  Board  and  its  procedure, 
273-284,    compulsory    education, 

274,  275;  State  and  voluntary  aid 
Tinder  the  old  regime,  275,  270; 
Education  Acts  of  1870  and  1870, 

275,  operations  of  the  former, 
277,  278;  Lord  Brougham's  advo- 
cacy of  national  education  and 
characteristic  contemporary  op- 
position, 276;  progress  of  State 
control,  276,  277;  secular  and  re- 
ligious teaching,  277,  this  qi 
tion  debated,  297;  aims  of  the 
Education  Department,  278;  gen- 
erally unsatisfactory  results  of 
learning  by  rote,  279-281;  the 
working  man's  ignorance  of  the 
economy  of  life,  281;  decrease  of 


crime   resulting   from    > ,! 
si  i  own     by  -j>,|. 

present    v.  nditui 

284;   grammar  school  .    .  ndi 

.  and  p  •'  : 
286;  comp  I 
the  "crammer,1 
menl  -  ;  tto  oni\ 

nates,  287;  receni 
by  the  aniversitiei 
<       i    Lations,  professorial  oh 
unattached    studi 
conferences  of  schoolrc 
the  College   of   Preceptoi 
types  of  inefficient  mi  290, 

291 ;     n.  r;  ■  aity     for     bi  i 
schools,      289;      inefficiency 
school  education,  289;  direct 
indirect  in  i  of  school, 

great  value  of  the  latter.  291;  n  - 
sponsibility    of    j 
late:  I     • 

preference  for  plaj .  292;  •  i  iniza- 
tion  of  the  public  school  .  292, 
294;  in<  visi- 

bility of  the  mod 
the  higher  tea*  I 

doubtful  result,  2! 
ization   the    key  of   the   pn 

tern,  296;  unive: 
207;  when 

denominational  einh>v. 
education  of  the  soli  i 

Educational  Act.  The:  co 

the     Corporations    A.ct,    62;     in- 
timate   con  i    with 
legislation,    L53  L55;   satisfac 
result  of,  b"i!:  refor  is  m 
154,  abuse  of,  wh» 
ing  and  agricull  xa 
its  relation  to  I  '  i     1 
oper 

Education  Office,  The:  in  i 
to  the  rector,   L3;  aim  oi 
partment    in    respeci  liool 

Boards,  277.  : 

Edwards,  Rev.   W.  WM  on 
Parliament  in  relation  to  I 

2   !,  2 
forms,  219. 

Effi  iiencr 
and  profession! 

"Elberfield  -  xperiment,  Tl 

■ 
of,  142,  143. 


cm 


INDEX. 


Eiiot,  George :  her  works  an  instance 
of  the  invasion  of  science  into  lit- 
erature, 525;  her  novels,  534;  her 
doctrine  of  ' '  the  religion  of  hu- 
manity," 510;  parallel  teaching  of 
John  Morley,  540. 

Embankments,  The  Thames,  77. 

Emigration.     (See  The  Colonies.) 

Employer  and  employed:  modera- 
tion of  the  latter  164;  example, 
the  cotton  famine,  164;  instances 
in  contrast,  the  Nottingham  frame- 
breakers,  165;  rarity  of  violence  in 
our  time,  166. 

Endowed  Schools  Act,  The,  285. 

Engineer,  The  mining,  161. 

Equity  and  law  defined,  418,  419; 
their  amalgamation  through  re- 
cent reforms,  418. 

Established  Church.  (See  Chuech 
oe  England.) 

Estates,  Landed.     (See  Landlobd.) 

Estheticism.     (See  Cultuee.) 

Evangelicalism.  (See  The  Chuech 
of  England.) 

Evolution.     (See  Philosophy.) 

Excellence  of  some  kind,  a  necessity 
through  life,  319. 

Exeter,  102;  its  special  attractions  to 
residents,  102. 

Factoby  legislation:  state  protection 
of  women  and  children,  146;  ex- 
cessive interference  a  blunder,  147; 
its  progress  traced,  147-153;  bene- 
fit of  limited  hours,  149;  summary 
of  Factory  Acts,  149,  150  {foot- 
note); connection  with  the  Ediica- 
tion  Act,  153-155;  beneficial  re- 
sults of,  158,  159;  Mr.  Redgrave 
thereon,  158,  159. 

Factory  operative,  The:  predomi- 
nance of,  in  Lancashire  towns, 
85;  his  intelligence,  his  singular 
indulgences,  86;  his  recreations — 
curious  examples,  86;  early  mar- 
riages and  their  effect,  85;  his 
day's  work  described,  87-89;  ex- 
traordinary independence  of,  94; 
progress  of  factory  legislation  147- 
152;  its  bene  fieial  results,  150,  158, 
159;  his  physical  deterioration  and 
its  causes,  8G,  159,  160. 

1  ing  and  the  prefect,  293, 
294. 


Families  hired  as  field  laborers,  cu- 
rious customs,  189,  190. 

Farmer,  The:  different  types  of,  22; 
a  modern  farmer's  family,  23;  his 
relation  to  the  Board  of  Guard- 
ians, 45,  46;  doubtful  results  of 
peasant  proprietorship,  187;  ef- 
fects of  Acts  of  husbandry  and 
rotation  of  crops,  191;  advani 
of  the  large  farmer,  191;  Mr.  Caird 
on  the  agri cultural  capabilities  of 
England,  191,  192;  disappearance 
of  the  yeomen,  192;  increased 
number  of  dairy-farms  and  mar- 
ket-gardens, 193;  speculative  rem- 
edies, redistribution  of  land,  194; 
tenancy  under  corporate  bodies, 
194;  tolerance  of  the  laborer  to 
the  farmer,  199. 

Female  independence :  is  the  result 
of  our  changed  social  life,  307; 
its  effect  in  the  present  day,  308, 
309;  possible  ultimate  benefit  of, 
309. 

Feudal  customs  at  Woburn  Abbey 
29;  rarity  of,  to-day,  29. 

Financial  England :  conventional 
mystery  of  money  market  and 
credit,  110;  London  the  center, 
110 ;  impossibility  to  trace  fi- 
nance from  general  to  particular, 
111;  causes  of  depression  and  in- 
flation, 111 ;  cosmopolitan  and 
gradual  development  of,  112;  its 
wide  ramifications,  111,  112.  The 
Bank  of  England:  its  primary 
functions,  113 ;  its  exceptional 
functions,  113,  114;  its  relation 
to  other  banks,  114.  London,  the 
international  clearing-hor.se,  111, 
has  replaced  Amsterdam  in  this 
function,  114;  reasons  of  its  growth, 
115.  The  Stock  Exchange,  its  op- 
erations, 115,  its  aspect,  116,  in- 
vestment business,  116,  gambling 
or  specitlative  business,  116,  117, 
issue  of  a  foreign  loan,  117-119, 
deceptions  practiced  towards  the 
public,  118,  119;  inseparable  con- 
nection between  banking  and  com- 
merce, 122,  123;  the  financial  part- 
ner in  a  banking-house,  136;  a 
banking-house  and  a  bank  con- 
trasted, 137;  functions  of  the  for- 
mer, 138. 


IND:.  X. 


Fine  arts,  Cultivation  of,  in  towns  of 
business,  81.     (See  also  Culture.) 

Flats,  Life  in:  Victoria  Street,  W<  st- 
minster,  299;  its  advantages,  300. 

Forces,  strength  of  the  army,  262, 
263. 

Foreign  loans:  process  of  issue,  117- 
121;  deceptions  practiced  on  the 
public,  1.18,  119. 

Foreign  Office,  The:  its  administra- 
tion, 380,  301;  secrecy  necessary 
360;  the  departments,  300;  or- 
ganization of  the  Treaty  Depart- 
ment, 361;  the  Diplomatic  Estab- 
lishment and  its  privileges,  the  St. 
James's  Club,  360;  numerous  trou- 
blesome applications  to,  370,  371. 

France:  the  French  artisan  in  his 
relation  to  the  State,  145;  com- 
pared  with  that  of  the  English, 
146,  147 ;  effect  of  intercourse 
with,  on  our  social  life,  '299;  the 
imprint  of  French  habits,  299; 
eases  in  which  overdone,  301;  its 
effect  on  the  stage,  301,  302;  on 
the  relations  of  the  sexes,  302;  on 
marriage,  305-307;  its  influence 
on  literature,  539;  on  the  writings 
of  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  and  Mr. 
John  Morley,  539;  influence  of  the 
French  school  on  our  stage,  551; 
French  domestic  morality  unsuit- 
able to  English  actors  and  au- 
diences, 554-556;  French  plays  in 
London  commonly  have  limited 
audiences,  580;  French  and  En- 
glish newspapers  and  journalism 
contrasted,  575. 

Eraser,  Dr.  (Bishop  of  Manchester) : 
on  defects  in  the  Sanitary  Act, 
184;  on  overcrowding  and  propaga- 
tion of  disease,  185;  on  allotments, 
187;  on  employment  of  women  in 
agriculture,  190. 

Free  discussion,  Beneficial  results 
of,  142. 

Free  trade:  benefits  of  free  imports, 
122,  excess  of,  its  causes,  124,  125, 
its  lesson,  125,  126,  the  new  I 
ry,    124,    values,   not   volume,    of 
trade  decreased,  128. 

Freeman,  Mr.,  as  an  historian,  538. 

Friendly  societies:  the  village  I 
fit  society,  14;  Government  actua- 
rial tables,  215;  necessity  of  the  co- 


operation of  employ*  r 
and  difficulties,  216 
to  the  state,  21 ,:   \- 
ment,  217; 

gestion  for  State  conti 

219;  penny  banks.  219 
221    / 
Frugi 

turer,  82. 
Future  o  .id.  The,  di 

591  59 

to  the  colonies  and  (• 

ain,  591,  51  2. 

Garden,  A.  preferable  to  the  allot- 
ment, 187. 
Germany:     influence    of    German 

thought    on    the    philo  ophy    of 

to-day,    502  504,    Lntrod 

CoL 

lyle,  503;  influent  i  of  B<  pel,  5 

growing  influi 

Liszt,  Wagner,  519. 
Girls,  The  higher  teachi 

its  doubtful  results,  2! 
Gladstone,  Righl   Eon. 

tion  to,  by  the  n 

341;  on  the  duty  of  the  Pri  . 

to  his  colli .  364. 

Government,    Imperial.      (See    Ti:i: 

State.  ) 
Gramma  r    schools,    the    advant 

offered  by,  in  certain 

Great      landowners.        (See      LAND- 
LORDS. ) 

Great  officers  of  State,  their  tit! 
precedent  y,  3 

Greater 
England.) 

Guardians,  Board,  of,    !!:  claim 
c    ididi 

ratepayers,  44  ;  its  dut  '•   I 

influence  of  the  recfc  >r  am 
er,   Jo.  46;  desirable 
48:  ■•  in  a  I 

::':  composil  ;<>n  <<i  the  1". 
49;  its  labors  described,  61 . 
portani 
50;  effl 

Hakerton,   Mr.    P.    G.,  ::^  ;in  !:lt 
critic,  516. 

Hardy,  Mr.,  as  a  novel. 


606 


INDEX. 


Hariey,  Mr.,  testimony  to  the  em- 
ployment of  women  in  field  labor, 
487. 

Harrison,  Mr.  Frederic:  on  the  re- 
lation of  the  French  artisan  to  the 
State,  145,  146;  as  a  Positivist, 
486;  influence  of  French  thought 
on  his  writings,  539;  on  the  press 
and  its  power,  575. 

Hegel,  influence  of  his  writings  on 
English  thought,  504. 

High  Church,  The.  (See  Chtjbch 
of  England.  ) 

Highland  railway,  Eccentricities  of 
travel  on  a,  260. 

Highway  boards,  56. 

History  and  historians:  Mr.  Wyon, 
Mr.  Spencer  Walpole,  Mr.  Free- 
man, Mr.  Justin  McCarthy,  537, 
538;  earnings  of  the  historian,  574. 

Hoey,  Mrs.  Cashel,  as  a  novelist,  534. 

Holyoake,  Mr.  Jacob:  "History  of 
Co-operation,"  227;  on  the  bene- 
fits accruing  to  the  working  classes 
from  co-operation,  234. 

Hotels:  the  modern  hotel,  its  advan- 
tages and  disadvantages,  268-271; 
gradual  absorption  of  small  inns, 
268;  "Hatchett's,"  268;  Covent 
Garden  hotels,  269;  table  d'hote, 
269-271,  its  unsuitability  to  the 
ordinary  Englishman,  269 ;  the 
hotel  drawing-room,  270. 

House  of  Commons:  the  process  of 
parliamentary  reform,  342;  con- 
nects Queen  and  Cabinet  with  the 
masses,  351;  decrease  in  desire 
for  a  seat  in,  372;  reasons,  oppor- 
tunities offered  by  literature — the 
review  the  platform  of  the  indi- 
vidual, 373;  membership  does  not 
necessarily  confer  social  distinc- 
tion, 374,  its  value,  374,  interest- 
ing nature  of  its  duties,  374,  its 
attractions,  375,  its  severe  labors, 
375,  duties  of  members  to  constit- 
uencies, 375;  Mr.  Palgrave's  "The 
House  of  Commons,"  374,  387, 
389 ;  comparative  independence  of 
representatives  of  small  constitu- 
encies, 376;  a  day  in  the  House, 
376-380,  382-384,'  385-390,  its  pro- 
cedure, 370-390,  its  denizens,  377, 
private  business,  378,  petitions, 
378,  aspect  of  the  House  and  its 


members,  379-381,  age  of  mem- 
bers, 381,  decrease  of  the  aristoc- 
racy in,  381,  a  question  of  privi- 
lege, 382,  its  oratory,  383,  384, 
392-395,  Mr.  Bright  as  an  orator, 
395,  loss  of  classic  oratory  and  rea- 
sons, 393-395;  the  whip  and  his 
functions,  384,  385;  the  division, 
385,  progress  of  a  Bill,  386-388; 
action  of  the  Lords,  388;  royal 
assent,  388,  389;  the  Speaker,  his 
duties  and  privileges,  388-392; 
rules  and  practices  of  the  House, 
390 ;  its  staff  and  their  duties,  392 ; 
supply  committees,  391;  rights 
of  private  members,  391;  select 
committees,  392;  essentials  of  pop- 
ularity, 395;  rarity  of  collision  be- 
tween the  two  Houses,  398. 

House  of  Lords:  its  importance  be- 
low that  of  the  Commons,  396, 
exceptionally  superior  to,  397;  its 
increasing  influence,  398;  rarity  of 
collisions  between  the  two  Houses 
— instances,  398;  difficulties  of  as- 
pirants in,  399;  an  afternoon  in 
the  House,  400^105,  exterior  and 
interior  aspect  of,  400,  401,  its 
members,  401,  their  comparative 
impassibility,  401,  402,  its  proced- 
ure, 401-404,  the  Speaker,  401,  a 
debate,  401,  404,  oratory,  403,  404, 
compared  with  that  of  the  Com- 
mons, 408,  the  imperium  in  impe- 
rio,  403,  unique  position  of  Lord 
Redesdale  as  Chairman  of  Com- 
mittees, 405;  rules  and  practices, 
405,  the  divisions,  405,  elements 
for  the  perpetuation  of  the  aris- 
tocracy, 406;  possible  reforms  in, 
406 ;  influence  and  authority  of  its 
members,  407,  408;  prevalence  of 
Conservatism,  407,  408;  possible 
results  of  county  suffrage,  408; 
aspect  as  a  court  of  appeal,  422, 
423,  life  peers,  423. 

Howell,  Mr.  George,  on  the  earn- 
ings and  expenses  of  the  working 
classes,  220. 

Husbandry,  Acts  of,  and  their  ef- 
fect, 191. 

Huxley,  Professor:  his  method  and 
services,  520-522;  on  "the  proto- 
plasm," 521;  opposition  offered  by 
Mr.  St.  George  Mivart,  523,  524. 


INDEX. 


G07 


Imperial  England:  enoouragemenl 

of   emigration,    580;    our   Crown 
dependencies  and  self-governing 

colonies,  581;  extent  of  our  pos- 
sessions in  temperate  regions,  581; 
attractions  to  emigrants  of  En- 
glish-speaking communities,  581, 
582;  financial  relations  with  the 
colonies,  582;  extent  of  trade  \\  ith, 
5©2;  their  patriotism,  583;  the  sug- 
gested federation,  583;  the  Sine 
and  the  colonies,  583,  584,  Burke 
thereon,  590;  forces  of  cohesion, 
584;  suggested  grant  of  privil 
to,  584;  influence  of  democ] 
(1)  in  the  colonies,  (2)  at  home, 
(3)  in  Crown  dependencies,  58(3; 
position  and  policy  of  the  govern- 
or of  a  colony,  588;  the  present 
and  future  of  England  in  relation 
to  the  colonies  and  Greater  Brit- 
ain, 591,  592. 

Imperial  Government.  (See  The 
State.) 

Imports,  Excess  of:  its  cause,  124, 
125;  its  lesson,  125,  12G;  the  new 
theory,  124;  necessity  of  its  ar- 
rest, 126. 

Inclosure  Commissioners,  The,  193. 

Independents,  The  (or  Congrega- 
tionalists).    (See  Nonconformity.  ) 

India,  as  a  profession,  578,  579;  ben- 
efits accrued  from  throwing  open 
the  career,  578,  579;  certain  re- 
sulting defects,  578;  the  competi- 
tion Wallah,  578,  579. 

India  Office,  The:  its  administra- 
tion, 359;  action  of  the  Indian 
Council,  360;  numerous  trouble- 
some applications  to,  368,  369. 

Inflation  and  depression  of  trade, 
Causes  of,  111,  123,  124,  127-129. 

Industrial  schools,  Beneficial  result 
of,  240,  241. 

Inn,  The:  its  absolution  by  large 
hotels,  268. 

Irish  element  in  Liverpool  and  un- 
skilled labor,  89,  90. 

Ironworks,  An:  its  aspect,  133;  or- 
ganization in  the  works,  133,  134, 
at  the  mines,  133,  134;  the  "pud- 
dler,"  134;  sale  of  iron,  134;  the 
managing  partner,  his  functions, 
and  control,  134,  135;  estimate  of 
capital  employed,  137,  138. 


Jews,  The:  their  numb 

tarian    differ*  QO(  -.    I, 

'• ed  English  S^  tual 

and  belief,  476; 

faiths,  476;  marri 

sion  to  proselytism,   i. 

tion  in  nations,   178; 

478;  training  for  I 

479;  education  of 

provision 
Journal  ism  :   oocup  i    ■ 

ings  of   the  j 

special  correspondent, 

ures  and  prospects  oi  .77. 

Jowett,  Mr.,  Theology  o 
Justices  of  the  p 

TRATES.) 

Kensington:  old  and  new  K<  nsing- 
ton,  77,  78;  necessity  for  tree  pro- 
tection, 78. 

Laborer,  The.  (See  Tin:  Abtisah, 
and  The  A.gbi<  oiiTi  bal  Labob 

Lancashire    (see    also    Mancsp 
and    Liverpool):    improvements 
in   the  last   sixty  years,   80,    81; 
regularity  of  factory*  arnings,  i  ad 
necessary  bent  ilt,  84;  the 

factory  hand,  bis  i  and 

habits,  :   smaller   man., 

turing  towns — Blackburn, 
bridge,  &c,  87;  the  ma:  ring 

village — CompstaU    in    ( 
87;  description  of  a  cotton-milL 
a  day's  work,  87  8!  |  ter  op- 

portunities of  popular  amusement 
in  northern  count i<  546. 

Land  agent,  The:  duties  ol  the  I  >uke 
of  Northumberland's  commission- 
er, 33,  34;  bailiwicks  and 
on  the  property,  33,  34;  advan- 
tages of  the  control  of  a  superior 
agent,  42. 

Landed  estates     (S<  e  L  ••••  •• 

Landlord,    The:   CO] 
mate    of   the   OCOUpati 

,:t  landowner, 
27;  the  actual  creditable  fulfill- 
ment of  bis  duties,  26;  bis  respon- 
sibilities, 26,  27;  daily  routine  life 
of,  27,  28;  his  fcrei  I  I  of  char- 
itable •  uization 
and  admini 
28-42;  completem  onte 


608 


INDEX. 


and  checks  upon  them,  28,  29; 
feudal  customs  rarely  seen,  28,  29; 
feudal  customs  at  Woburn  Abbey, 
29;  the  Duke  of  Westminster's  es- 
tate (Eaton),  organization  of,   29, 

30,  security  of  tenure  of  the  work- 
men employed,  30;  Duke  of  Nor- 
thumberland's estate  (Alnwick 
Castle),  organization  of,  30,  31, 
Tynemouth  excavations,  31,  Tyne- 
mouth,  31,  32,  the  ducal  interests 
represented  on   the   commission, 

31,  vast  properties  of  the  Nor- 
thumberland estate,  32,  33,  the 
farms  upon  it,  32,  33,  duties  of 
the  chief  commissioner,  33,  34, 
bailiwicks  and  agents,  33,  34;  the 
Duke  of  Cleveland's  estates  (see 
Cleveland,  Duke  of);  Duke  of 
Devonshire's  estates  (see  Devon- 
shire, Duke  of);  archives,  their 
variety  and  extent,  39,  40;  gen- 
eral condition  of  leases,  40;  lands 
of  Crown  and  Ecclesiastical  Com- 
missioners (the  largest  landown- 
ers), 40,  41,  the  system  of  their 
management,  41;  lands  of  the 
City  guilds,  their  management, 
41;  smaller  estates,  their  general 
management,  41,  42;  advantages 
of  the  control  of  a  superior  agent, 
42;  influence  of  great  landlords, 
ubiquitous,  31,  32;  the  close  and 
open  village,  185  [footnote);  in- 
creased sense  of  resjjonsibility, 
186;  effect  of  abolition  of  old  Poor 
Law,  186;  small  returns  of  cottage 
property,  186;  Acts  of  Husbandry, 
191;  gradual  passing  of  estates 
from  poor  men,  186;  agricultural 
area  of  England,  how  held,  192; 
political  influence,  326. 

Land  question,  The:  doubtful  result 
of  peasant  proprietorship,  187; 
different  habits  of  French  and  En- 
glish peasants,  187;  agricultural 
area  of  England,  192,  how  held, 
192;  small  squires  and  yeomen 
disappearing,  192;  limited  State 
interference,  the  Inclosure  Com- 
missioners, 193;  speculative  rem- 
edy, redistribution  of  land,  194. 

Law  and  equity  defined,  418,  their 
amalgamation  under  recent  re- 
form, 418. 


Law  courts,  The:  the  police  court 
and  its  procedure,  411,  412,  na- 
ture of  cases  brought  before  it, 
412,  413,  a  representative  case, 
"theft  from  the  person,"  412, 
413;  Quarter  Sessions,  aspect  of, 
414,  415,  its  grand  jury  and  pro- 
cedure, 414,  cases  brought  before 
it,  414,  415,  questions  of  law,  416; 
Court  for  Crown  Cases  Reserved, 
its  procedure  and  disabilities,  416; 
advantages  of  a  final  court  of  ap- 
peal, 416;  ordinary  litigation  and 
its  difficulties,  a  representative 
case,  "a  repairing  lease,  "416—123, 
the  preliminaries,  417,  pleadings, 
417,  interrogatories,  418,  trial  at 
Westminster,  419-421;  appeal  to 
Divisional  Court,  421,  appeal  to 
the  House  of  Lords  and  final 
judgment,  422,  423;  law  and  equi- 
ty, definition  of,  418,  beneficial 
amalgamation  of,  by  recent  re- 
forms, 418;  Judges'  Chambers, 
418;  Queen's  counsel,  "silk  "and 
"stuff, "  419 ;  typical  cases  at  West- 
minster Hall,  419;  the  Divisional 
Court,  421;  dress  of  the  judges, 
421,  422;  the  House  of  Lords  and 
life  peers,  422,  423;  national  aver- 
sion to  law,  423,  424;  the  County 
Court,  424-426,  facilities  offered 
to  suitors,  424,  a  representative 
case,  servant  and  employer,  423- 
426;  County  Court  procedure,  425, 
its  aspect,  425,  typical  cases,  425, 
426,  appeal  from,  426;  ecclesiasti- 
cal courts  and  their  procedure, 
426-429;  Judicial  Committee  of 
the  Privy  Council,  its  aspect  and 
constitution,  428,  typical  cases, 
428,  429;  transitional  state  of  the 
law  courts,  429,  430;  their  advance 
with  the  times,  430;  suggested 
modifications,  430;  colonial  judges, 
590. 

Leamington,  102,  103. 

Leases,  General  conditions  of,  on 
large  estates,  40. 

Leeds.     (See  Yorkshire.) 

Legislation,  Modern:  effects  of,  3; 
state  protection  of  women  and 
children,  146;  excessive  interfer- 
ence a  blunder,  147;  progress  of 
recent  factory  legislation  traced, 


INDEX. 


I      I 


147-153;  reforms  still  needful,  150- 
152,  155-157;  summary  of  factory 
legislation,  149,  150  [footnote),  re- 
sults of  it,  149,  150,  L58,  169;  Leg- 
islation in  shops,  153;  r< 
the  Education  Act,  153-155;  the 
truck  system  not  yet  abolished, 
155,  150;  necessity  of  elasticity  in 
application,  157;  mining  legisla- 
tion, 160;  legislation  for  friendly 
societies.  217;  improvement  in 
criminal  legislation,  239;  benefi- 
cial effect  of  the  Prison  Act,  251, 
252;  railway  enactments,  260,261: 
the  Railway  Commissioners,  2ld. 
262;  method  of  procedure  in  leg- 
islation on  the  part  of  the  Cabinet, 
364,  365. 

Lewes,  G.  H. :  his  Positivism,  trib- 
ute to  Comte,  487;  his  philosophy, 
499-501;  "History  of  Philoso- 
phy." 499;  contempt  for  meta- 
physics, 499,  500;  excellence  of 
his  style  and  method,  500. 

Liberals,  The:  the  treatment  of  the 
rank  and  file  by  the  leaders,  334. 

Licenser  of  Plays,  The:  his  functions 
described,  55G-560;  defense  of  his 
office,  557-500. 

Life  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
(See  The  Present  Age.) 

Lister,  Mr.,  his  recent  and  rapidly 
growing  influence  in  physiology, 
522;  advocacy  of  "antiseptic  treat- 
ment," 522.  569. 

Literature  :  exceptional  social  sta- 
tus of  the  author  and  its  cause, 
322-324:  openings  offered  to  poli- 
ticians, 372,  373;  the  review  the 
platform  of  the  individual,  373; 
Carlyle  as  a  writer,  503;  invasion 
of,  by  psychology,  524.  by  physi- 
ology, instanced  in  the  writings 
of  George  Eliot,  524,  525;  popu- 
larity of  manuals,  528,  529 ;  Mr. 
Arnold's  writings,  529;  modern  ex- 
tension of  literary  criticism.  529; 
Mr.  Pater,  Mr.  Symonds,  and 
Professor  Shairp  as  critics,  529. 
Modern  poetry  and  poets:  Brown- 
ing, 530,  Swinburne,  530,  Tenny- 
son, 530.  531,  Alfred  Austin,  "  The 
Human  Tragedy,"  531,  532,  Mor- 
timer Collins,  531.  Novel  readers, 
532 ;   novels   and   novelists,   good 

39 


and  bad  m 

Edmund   i 
Charles    Read, 

Oliphant,  Mrs.  Lynn  I 
Cashel   Hoey, 
Mss   Braddon, 

I 
George  MacdonaJ  I 
idyllic   p.." 
Blackmore,  Mr.  B 
el  and  biography  : 
"Life 
"Life  of  L 

ological  literature:wi  il  John 

He.  man,  of  1  >■ .     Stanley, 

Canon  Farrar,  ."'--7.     Bi  torj 
historians,  537, 

ord  Office  and  aervi<  Pro- 

fessor Stubbs,   588  : 

Carlyle.  539,  of  fl"-  I  v  1, 

I;  writings  of  Mi-.  John  Morley, 
539,  510;  popularity  of  1 1 1 •  -  mi 
zinc  and  serial,  540,  54  1 :  literature 
considered    as   a    |  in,   673, 

571;  universality  of  writing  in  tin- 
present  day.  57o;  estimaied  gains 
of  the  poet,  no\'  ian, 

and  philosopher,  57:;.  .",7  i  ;  (he 
journalist,  his  duties,  and  income, 
57 1 :  the  daily  pre  fluence, 

economy,   and   Features,   7,71  .".77; 
the  weekly  prei  s,  577 
istics  ami    prospi  eta   of   modern 
journa  77. 

ation:  its  dillicn.lt;>  i epre- 

sentative  "  the    r 

lease,"   416,    A'll  :    popul 
sion  to  law,  423,  424. 

Little,  Mr.  H.  J.,  on  the  rural  la- 
borer, 177,  178,  185,  L86;    a    agri- 
cultural wa         l  a  the  intel- 
ligence  of    the    Nbrthumbei 
peasant,    L97 ;   on    the    pi 
of  the  held  laborer,  L99,  ! 

Littr',  .M..  as  a  Positn 

Liverpool :  a  capital   ot 
yet  center  of  culture,  81 :  culti- 
vation of  the  fine  ai  I  con- 

w.th   Manchi 
92-94;  diverse  popula 
90;  the  nautical  and 
ment,  89;  immigration  from   I 
land,  89,  90,  unskilled  laborin, 
its  popular  reereati 


G10 


INDEX. 


* 


politan  character  of,  91 ;  advan- 
tages accruing  from  intercourse 
■with  foreign  countries,  91 ;  its 
society  and  recreations:  Welling- 
ton rooms,  Aintree  and  Altcar,  92; 
its  clubs,  93,  91;  stringent  police 
rule,  91;  the  American  "bar,';  its 
introduction  and  evils,  95;  excel- 
lence of  educational  institutions, 
the  press,  and  theaters,  95;  the 
river  and  docks,  95. 

1  cans  to  municipalities,  how  raised, 
and  securities  against  excess,  65, 
66;  the  Public  Works  Loan  Com- 
missioners, 66.  (See  also  Fobetgn 
Loans.  ) 

Local  Acts  of  Parliament :  large 
number  of,  61;  their  scope  and 
prospective  increase,  62. 

Local  Board,  The :  a  connecting 
link  between  rural  and  municipal 
administration,  59;  its  duties,  59. 

Local  Government  Board:  its  con- 
trolling power,  65;  its  method  of 
action,  65,  66. 

London:  comparative  impotence  of 
the  London  ratepayer,  74,  75 ; 
scheme  for  a  metropolitan  mu- 
nicipality, 75,  its  present  constit- 
uents and  costliness  of  the  system, 
75,  76,  operations  of  the  vestries 
described,  76,  beneficial  action  of 
the  Board  of  Works,  76,  difficul- 
ties of  establishing  a  municipality 
and  suggested  alternative,  76,  77, 
success  of  the  School  Board,  76; 
London  improvements,  the  em- 
bankments, 77,  old  and  new  Ken- 
sington, 77,  78,  the  parks,  78,  ne- 
cessity of  tree  protection,  78;  the 
toiling  population  only  partly  visi- 
ble, 84.  85;  the  center  of  commerce 
and  finance,  110,  the  international 
clearing-house  in  succession  to 
Amsterdam,  114;  peculiarities  of 
the  London  artisan.  170,  172;  ve- 
hicles in,  265;  the  season,  304,  305; 
popular  amusements  in,  546,  547. 

Lord  Chamberlain,  The,  as  Licenser 
of  Plays,  his  functions  described, 
and  defense  of  his  office,  556-560. 

Lord  Chancellor :  appointments  to 
the  magistracy,  52,  53;  his  posi- 
tion in  the  House  of  Lords,  401. 

Lord  Lieutenant :   his  influence  in 


rural  administration,  46;  evils  c . 

absenteeism,  47;   appointment  of 

magistrates,  52,  53. 
Love,  Herbert  Spencer's  analysis  of 

the  passion  of,  496. 
Low  Church,  The.    (See  The  Cexrch 

OF  EXGLANIX ) 

Lynn  Linton,  Mrs. ,  as  a  novelist,  534. 

McCarthy,  Mr.  Justin,  as  a  novelist, 
534;  as  a  historian,  538. 

Macdonald,  Dr.  George,  as  a  novel- 
ist, 535. 

Magistracy,  The  :  high  estimation 
of  the  office  of  Justice  of  the 
Peace,  52,  curious  advertisement, 
52 ;  method  of  appointment  by 
Lord  Lieutenant  and  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, 52,  53;  influence  of  politi- 
cal and  religious  bias,  53 ;  the 
village  reeve  and  port  reeve,  55; 
popular  election  and  gradual  des- 
uetude of  it,  55,  56;  objections  to 
the  unpaid  magistracy,  57,  58;  dif- 
ficulties of  decision  in  trivial  cases, 
58;  the  legal  qualifications  in  an- 
cient times,  57;  provincial  alder- 
men not  magistrates,  70;  qualifi- 
cations and  disqualifications  of 
borough  magistrates,  70,  chiefly 
elected  for  political  reasons,  71, 
evils  of  the  process,  71,  72,  pro- 
tests of  certain  towns  against,  72. 

Manchester:  first  to  use  Corporation 
Act,  61;  improvement  in  the  last 
sixty  years,  80,  81;  a  capital  of 
commerce  but  center  of  culture, 
81;  cultivation  of  the  fine  arts  in. 
81;  the  plutocrat  not  supreme,  81; 
visible  predominance  of  the  toil- 
ing population,  84,  85;  "the  fac- 
tory hand,"  prevalence  of,  85,  his 
habits,  85,  86 ;  Manchester  and 
Liverpool  contrasted,  85-87, 92-94, 
permanence  of  families  in,  and 
reasons,  90 ;  Manchester  toilets 
and  entertainments,  92,  recrea- 
tions, balls  and  concerts,  91-93; 
revolution  in  the  hours  of  busi- 
ness, 93,  early  dinners,  93 ;  its 
clubs,  93,  94;  affected  patois  of 
the  millowner,  94;  excellence  of 
educational  institutions,  95,  of  the 
press,  95,  of  the  theaters,  95;  con- 
trasted with  Birininghani,  98. 


INDEX. 


Manufacturing.  (See  Commercial 
England.  ) 

Marines,  The:  their  duties,  434,  435; 
essentially  a  corps  d'dlite,  435. 

Market-gardens,  increase  in  number 
,  f,  193. 

Marriage  and  married  life.    Efl 
French  habits  on,  802.  305  3  17. 

Marfcine*u,  Miss,  on  Positivism, 
481. 

Masses,  The.     (See  The  People.) 

Match  trade,  the,  Need  of  legislation 
for,  151. 

Maudsley,  Dr.,  on  mental  phenom- 
ena, 491,  492;  on  the  evolution  of 
crime.  491. 

Mayoralty,  The:  functions,  honor- 
able position,  and  unceasing  du- 
ties of  a  Mayor,  G9,  70;  idem  of 
the  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  G9, 
70. 

Medical  profession,  The  (See  also 
Physiology):  social  status  of  the 
doctor,  324;  considered  as  a  pro- 
fession, its  prospects,  5G8,  esti- 
mated gains  of,  508,  its  perils,  569, 
instances  of  sacrifice,  568,  569;  the 
antiseptic  treatment,  569. 

Melbourne,  Lord:  characteristic  op- 
position to  national  education, 
276. 

Members  of  Parliament  (See  also 
House  of  Commons)  :  their  influ- 
ence in  chambers  of  commerce 
and  trade  councils,  72,  73;  their 
policy  towards  industrial  electors 
defined,  74:  working  men  in  Par- 
liament, 170;  large  number  of 
public-school  men,  295;  decline 
in  demand  for  the  career  and  rea- 
sons. 372-374;  increased  social 
distinction  not  absolute,  374; 
value  and  attractions  of  a  seat, 
374,  interesting  nature  of  the  oc- 
cupation, 374,  severity  of  the 
labors,  375,  376;  duties  to  con- 
stituencies, 375.  376;  greater  free- 
dom of  representatives  of  ■■ 
constituencies,  370;  age  of  mem- 
bers, 381;  oratory  in  the  Ho 
333,  384,  393-395;  advantag. 
unpaid  membership,  570,  571; 
politics  as  a  profession,  570. 

IVierchant,  The:  the  merchant  prince 
of  to-day  and  yesterday,  311,   so- 


cial status  of,  8 

with  that  of  II. 

•ned  attractions  and   i 
of ::  tnercantil 
also    I  .t.\M> 

COMW  '.   \mi!'- 

Mersey:   the  river    Me] 

doe..  -.   95. 

bordinatod  t..  ■ 
losopuy,  483;  < ;.   EL   Lew< 

Methodists,    or    w. 
Nonoooto! 

.  The.     f£      L 
Metropo  ara  "i 

7  '. 
crime  and 
241.  J 
Middl(  itions,  2 

Che:    i : 

Milk  die;  i  lie  cow    to  the 

Northumb 
Mill,  John   Stuart:   philosophy 
-   L1.)! ;  his  special  traini 
I;  on  u'.in 
490,  l91;onMr.  Bahi'smeth 

Mills'; 

for,  L57, 
Mining  engineer,  The,  160. 
Mining  populate 

irreguli 

ah  ience  of  th  I,  84;  Yoi  k-  . 

shire  miners  a  fine  rac 
■'.slation,     L60 
r.    lt'.O;    va 

miner,  161 ;  social  I; '.  L< 

better  aspect  of,  L62,   163; 

of  tl 

of  the  miner  "  be\i 
Mivart,  :  I 

si' ion  bo  Huxley  and  'i 

Moderation  of  (he  working  cla 

in  i  imi  tuble,  ll 

Morley,    dr.   John,  on  P 

482;  influence  of  French  thou 

on  his  writings,  639; 

539,  540;   "<  ompromi 

preacher    \.  ith    ■ 

the 
Midler.    Ma  -,.   his  influt 

ligious  thi 
Mundella,   Mr., 

of  arbi  c 


612 


INDEX. 


Municipal  Corporation  Act,  The, 
61;  first  adopted  in  Manchester, 
61. 

Municipal  government:  the  Local 
Board  a  connecting  link  between 
town  and  country,  59,  its  duties 
59;  imperceptible  growth  of  vil- 
lage into  town,  59,  country  towns 
and  country  villages  contrasted, 
60,  61;  desire  for  independence, 
61;  the  Municipal  Corporation 
Act  of  1835,  61,  62,  first  applied 
in  Manchester,  61;  vast  number 
of  local  Acts  of  Parliament,  61, 
their  scope  and  prospective  in- 
crease, 62;  influence  of  School 
Boards,  02,  increased  zeal  of  the 
citizen,  62;  the  Town  Council,  its 
constitution  and  duties,  62,  63, 
the  administration  described — the 
municipal  offices,  63,  61,  the  com- 
mittees, 64,  the  aldermen,  61; 
contact  of  imperial  and  local 
government,  64,  power  and  action 
of  the  Local  Government  Board, 
65;  municipal  loans,  how  raised, 
65,  66,  the  Public  Works  Loan 
Commissioners,  66,  provision 
against  any  excess,  66;  aspect 
of  a  Town  Council,  66,  67,  its 
training,  good  and  bad,  68,  69, 
functions,  position,  and  unceas- 
ing duties  of  the  mayor,  69,  70, 
idem  of  the  Lord  Mayor  of  Lon- 
don, 69;  influence  of  politics  in 
municipal  affairs,  72;  comparative 
impotence  of  the  London  rate- 
payer, 74,  75;  scheme  for  a  metro- 
politan municipality,  75,  its  pres- 
ent constituents — the  City  Cor- 
poration, the  Westminster  au- 
thorities, the  vestries,  the  Board 
of  Works,  75,  costliness  of  the 
system,  75,  76,  difficulties  of  es- 
tablishing a  municipality,  76,  and 
suggested  alternative,  77;  opera- 
tions of  the  vestries  described, 
76;  beneficial  action  of  the  Board 
of  Works,  76,  recent  metropolitan 
improvements,  77,  78. 

Music:  encouraged  by  the  Prince 
Consort,  518;  its  widely  increas- 
ing influence  518;  modern  En- 
glish composers,  518;  growing 
influence     of     Germany  —  Liszt, 


Wagner,  519,  Wagner's  Tannliau* 
ser,  520;  Du  Maimer  on  the  "-mu- 
sic of  the  future,"  519. 
Music-hall,  The:  its  good  and  evil 
influences,  547;  probable  good  re- 
sults of  the  coffee  music-halls, 
547;  its  influence  on  the  stage,  552. 

Navv,  The :  social  status  of  officers, 
323,  324;  national  importance  of, 
431,  432;  nautical  aptitude  of  the 
nation  our  chief  security,  432, 
predilection  of  youth  for  the  sea, 
432;  advantages  of  a  naval  career, 
432;  the  life  of  the  blue-jacket — 
training  as  a  boy,  432,  433,  as  an 
A.  B.,  431,  as  a  non-commissioned 
officer,  434;  the  marines — their 
duties,  434,  435,  essentially  a 
corps  d' elite,  435;  other  classes  con- 
stituting the  personnel  of  a  man- 
o'-war,  435;  the  life  of  the  officer 
— as  a  cadet,  435,  436,  as  an  officer, 
436;  commissioned  rank,  436;  of- 
ficers of  other  branches,  436;  as- 
pect of  a  man-o'-war,  436,  437; 
administration  —  the  Admiralty, 
437,  438,  constitution  of  the 
Board.  437,  its  unique  independ- 
ence, 438,  the  Controller  and  his 
duties,  437,  438;  our  naval  force, 
438  {footnote). 

Newcastle-on-Tyne,  95,  96;  its  fac- 
tories and  antiquities,  96;  altered 
course  of  the  river,  96,  97. 

Newman,  John  Henry,  his  theologi- 
cal writings,  537. 

Newspapers.     (See  The  Pkess.) 

"Noblesse,"  The:  our  aristocracy 
not  "noblesse,"  312;  extreme  es- 
clusiveness  of,  in  Austria,  312,  313; 
Princess  Esterhazy  an  instance, 
313;  comparison  of  the  system 
with  association  of  diverse  ranks 
in  our  society,  313,  314. 

Nonconformity:  its  admission  of  the 
importance  of  the  rector  and  his 
work,  15-19;  its  objections  to  him 
and  the  Established  Church,  19, 
20;  results  of  the  agitation  of 
Dissent,  20-22;  Dissent  in  rural 
districts,  and  in  towns,  its  influ- 
ence in  the  latter,  23;  debt  due  to 
it  by  religion,  24;  its  attitude  to 
the  Church,  and  resulting  respon- 


silulity  of  the  olergy,  21;  preva- 
lence in  Yorkshire  households,  80; 
the  sects  of,'  466;  position  of 
Unitarians,  467;  Independents  (or 
Cbngregationalists),  their  actn  ity 
for  disestablishment,  4(>7,  the  ijih- 
eration  Society,  467,  autonomy  of 
Congregations,  407.  training  for 
the  ministry,  4G7,  468,  ceremony 
of  ordination,  4(58,  469,  relation  of 
the  pastor  to  his  flock,  469,  the 
Congregational  Union,  469;  the 
Baptists,  466,  autonomy  of  their 
congregations,  467;  the  Presbyteri- 
ans, 466  ;  the  Wesleyans  (or  Meth- 
odists)— constitution  and  powers 
of  the  Conference,  470,  471,  the 
itinerant  system,  471,  training  for 
the  ministry  ana  preliminaries  of 
candidature,  471-473. 

Norfolk,  Duke  of,  and  his  kinsmen: 
an  instance  of  precedence,  316. 

Northumberland,  Dake  of:  organi- 
zation of  his  estates  (Alnwick 
Castle),  30,  31;  excavations,  etc., 
at  Tynemouth,  31,  32,  ducal  in- 
terests represented  on  the  com- 
mission, 31;  vast  properties  of  the 
duke,  32,  33;  the  farms  upon  his 
estate,  32,  33;  duties  of  the  chief 
commissioner,  33,  bailiwicks  and 
agents,  33,  34. 

Northumberland  peasant :  women 
beneficially  employed  in  field  la- 
bor, 190  el  spq.;  value  of  milk  diet 
to,  195  (footnote);  intelligence  of, 
197. 

Novels  and  novelists:  novel  rea< 
532;   good  and   bad   novels,   532, 
533;  Mr.   Trollope  as  a  nov 
532,  533;  Mr.  Edmund  Yates,  533; 
Mr.    Charles   Reade,    Mr.    W 
( Jollins,  533.    Lady  novelists :  Mrs. 
Oliphant,  Mrs.  Lynn  Linton,  Mrs. 
Cashel  Hoey,  534;  "  Onida,"  534; 
Miss  Braddon,   Miss   Broughton, 
535;   George  Eliot's   nov  sis,   534. 
George  Macdon aid's  novels,  535; 
the  idyllic  novel — Mr.  Black,  Mr. 
Hardy,  Mr.  Blackmore,  536;  mod- 
ern demand  for   "realism,"  536; 
ga'ins  of  novelists,  574. 

Odd  Fellows,  Manchester  Unity  of, 
219. 


Official  England :  ext  ri 
Governn*  ,1  1 
onial  Office,  Its  admini 
scribed, 

: 
individual  \>    rh  of  the   < 
Minister,  3 

Iminisb 
Indian  Council,  859;  the  P 
Office,  iis  b 

recy,  360,  its  departments, 
361,  privileges  of  the  1 
department,    361;    the    Board   of 
Trade   and    Its   dutie 
Treasury.  361;  the  Privy  Council, 
361  36  •  ..  a  mee 

,  remier        I 
the  So  dul 

Premierto  ins  coll<  • 
ministerial  communicai  Lo 
Sovereign  ting 

of  a  Cabinel    Council,  365,   pro- 
lure   in    legislation    described, 
365;  arduous  duties  <>(  a  minister 
of  S     '  .    1 15  ">7! ;  the  rou- 

tine, 365,  866;  qui  i  ro 
some    applications    to,    367, 
Secretary  for  War  |  see  in 

Oliphant,  Mrs.,  as  a  novelj 

Organization:    the    feature    of    the 
present   age,    6;    the    key   to   f!n> 
present  system  of  education,  . 
in  .  l,  of  what  is  it  . 

480.     (For  Orj  m  ol   I 

ernment  and  Trade,  ■'.  un- 

der tli 

"  Ouida"  as  a  UOVelist,  ■ 

Out-door  relief:  whal  of, 

201,  202:  consider! 
214;  its  c\  ilsj  206;  i  - 
posed,  207,  20£  on  hon- 

est   labor — in 

stre  9 ;   Mr.    1  on 

dispauperization,  209  Jll : 
ed  wives  and  negl< 

tances,    211,    212;    d< 
213;  co 
of  it,  214;  Mr     - 
difficulties  of  its  abolition, 
the  Elb<  rfi<  Id  1  cp<     m      ■  21 1. 

■ 
on  ;t. 
thereby,  I 

Ovei  »f  the  poi  c,  56. 

Over-trading,  124, 


614 


INDEX. 


Oxford:  new  Oxford,  99,  100;  effect 
of  railway  communication,  99, 100; 
married  fellows,  100. 

Painting:  social  status  of  the  artist 
and  reasons,  322;  pottery  painting 
by  ladies,  511;  modern  painting, 
511-515;  loss  of  the  "grand  style," 
511,  512;  realism  of  modern  ar- 
tists, 511,  512;  "action"  in  Turn- 
er's paintings  and  its  absence 
to-day,  512;  the  morbid  school, 
512-515,  Mr.  Burne  Jones,  513, 
514.  Mr.  Whistler,  514,  its  sources 
of  inspiration,  515,  Tissot's  "Au- 
tumn," 515;  excellence  of  the 
water-color  school,  514;  critics — 
Mr.  Buskin,  Mr.  Hamerton,  Mr. 
Pater,  516. 

Palgrave,  Mr.,  "The  House  of  Com- 
mons," 374,  3S7,  389. 

Palmerston,  Lady,  and  the  salon, 
335,  336;  her  exceptional  power, 
336;  remarkable  instance  of  it, 
"the  expelled  minister,"  336;  her 
careful  management,  336. 

Parents  and  children,  Effects  of 
changed  social  life  upon,  305. 

Parish,  The  (see  also  The  Village)  : 
influence  of  Church  of  England 
in,  9,  10;  the  parson's  difficulties 
in,  ll,  12;  disestablishment  of  its 
officials  (Mr.  C.  S.  Bead  thereon), 
43 ;  gradual  loss  of  individual 
power  of  the  parish,  45. 

Parks,  The  London,  necessity  for 
tree  protection,  78. 

Parliament.     (See    The    House    of  I 
Commons    and    The    House    or 
Lords.  ) 

Parliamentary  representatives.  (See 
Members  op  Parliament.  ) 

Parsloe,  Mr.  Joseph,  "Our  Bailway 
System,"  357. 

Parson,  The,  a  proper  title,  462. 
(See  The  Bectoe.  ) 

Pater,  Mr.  W.  H. ,  as  an  art  critic, 
516,  529;  his  style,  529. 

Pauperism  :  the  workhouse,  201;  out- 
door relief,  201,  202;  the  casual 
ward,  201,  202;  the  career  of  the 
pauper,  203  </  seq.,  "the  failures 
of  civilization,"  203;  causes,  346, 
347,  not  always  drunkenness,  204, 
accidental    pauperism,    204,    pro- 


fessional pauperism,  205;  neces- 
sity of  the  Poor  Law,  205;  out- 
door relief,  its  evils,  206,  207, 
fallacies  exposed,  207,  bad  effect 
on  honest  labor,  209,  deserted 
wives  and  neglected  parents,  211, 
212,  its  defenders,  213,  obstacles 
to  its  abolition,  214;  number  and 
cost  of  paupers,  207;  Mr.  Prety- 
man  on  "  Dispauperization, "  209- 
212;  effect  of  rates  on  wages  and 
land,  209,  211;  ill  effect  "of  reli- 
ance on  "the  rates,"  210;  auda- 
city of  the  professional  tramp — ■ 
instance,  211;  degrading  effects 
of  receiving  parochial  relief,  212, 
idem  of  the  Scotch  Poor  Law, 
212,  213;  evil  tendencies  of  the 
Poor  Law,  213;  the  Elberfield  ex- 
periment, 214;  foreign  pauperism, 
Bureaux  de  Bienfaisance,  214,  its 
operations,  215;  pauperism  aggra- 
vated in  rich  communities,  215. 

Peasant,  The.  (See  The  Agricul- 
tural Laborer.  ) 

Peasant  proprietors,  doubtful  result 
of  their  creation,  187;  difference 
of  their  habits  in  Prance  and  En- 
gland, 187. 

Penny  banks,  their  operations  and 
popularity,  219. 

People,  Tiie:  their  moderation  in 
times  of  trouble,  164;  disposition 
of  the  masses  to  accept  political 
situation,  338,  339;  moved  by  facts, 
not  theories,  338;  effects  of  agita- 
tion, 338,  339;  their  demands.  339; 
enthusiasm  for  Royalty,  839,  310; 
docility  of  the  modern  "fire- 
brand," 340;  ovations  to  political 
leaders,  340,  341,  the  scene  in 
Palace  Yard  described,  340.  341; 
Lord  Derby  on  relation  of  Crown 
and  people,  "  employers  and  em- 
ployed," 347;  Mr.  Bagehot  on  the 
relation  of  the  Crown  to  the  masses 
through  the  Ministry  and  Parlia- 
ment, 350,  351;  approximation  of 
classes  in  Government,  352;  possi- 
ble results  of  county  suffrage  and 
strife  between  classes,  408,  409; 
nautical  aptitude  of  the  nation 
our  chief  security,  432. 

Perpetual  curate,  The.  (See  The 
Bector.) 


INDEX. 


<;i.-, 


Philosophy:  recent  revival  of  psy- 
chology in  England,  Is:'.;  su] 
acy  of  philosophy  over  metaphy- 
sics, 483;  the  Scotch  philosophj 
of  common  sense  and  its  support- 
ers— Dugald Stewart,  Reid,  Hume. 
484.  485,  its  influence  in  France, 
488;  Positivism,  doctrines  of  Au- 
gusta ( 'unite  and  their  influence 
on  English  philosophy,  485;  trib- 
ute to  Oomte  of  G.  H.  Lewes,  487; 
psychology  attacked,  486;  "hu- 
manity," its  system,  486;  M.  Lit- 
he, 486;  religions  Positivism. 
Frederic  Harrison,  486;  its  greatest 
element,  "evolution  of  thought," 
486;  John  Stuart  Mill  as  a  philos- 
opher, 487-491,  his  special  train- 
ing, 487,  488.  utilitarianism  and 
its  uses,  489-491;  Dr.  Mauds  ley 
on  mental  phenomena,  491,  492, 
on  evolution  of  crime,  492;  Her- 
bert Spencer  as  a  philosopher, 
492-497,  his  high  position,  493, 
theory  of  evolution,  493,  "first 
principles,"  494,  theory  of  "  the 
first  cause,"  497,  "principles  of 
p-ychology,"  495,  his  analysis  of 
the  passion  of  love,  496,  497;  Alex- 
ander Bain's  contributions  to  phi- 
losophy and  its  method,  497-499; 
G.  H.  Lewes  as  a  philosopher, 
"History  of  Philosophy,"  499,  his 
contempt  for  metaphysics,  499, 
500,  excellence  of  his  style  and 
method,  500;  Darwin's  "origin  of 
species,"  and  wide  influence  of 
his  theories,  501,  502;  the  triumph 
of  analysis  in  the  present  day,  502; 
the  influence  of  German  thought, 
introduced  by  Coleridge,  fostered 
by  Carlyle,  503,  influence  of  He- 
gel, 503;  the  future  of  philoso- 
phy, 504,  505,  its  prospects  as  the 
religion  of  the  future,  "  who  is  to 
be  Pope?"  526,  527,  Christianity 
and  philosophy.  540;  current  re- 
muneration for  philosophic  writ- 
ing, 574. 

Physician,  The.  (See  The  Medical 
Profession.  ) 

Physiology:  growing  influence  of 
Mr.  Lister  in,  522;  its  invasion  of 
literature,  instanced  in  the  works 
of  George  Eliot,  525. 


Plutocracy,  it 
with    aristocracy,    810,    811; 

me  i 

S  -  311. 

Poa  ih<    .    i  ae,  I7:i. 

Poetry  and   poe        B 
poet,  530;  Swinbumi 
cyson,  530;  Mortimer  ( 
Alfred  An  -tin.  "The  Hum. 
edy,"  531,  532;  r<  mum  n      i 
the  poet,  ">7:'>. 

Police,  The:  stringent  rule  a!  I 
pool,  '.•!;  operations  oi 
247  250;  objections  to.  -JI7:  their 
undoubted  efficacy,  247;  the  de- 
tective, operat  ions  of  fche  I  depart- 
ment  of   Criminal    Invest       -ion 
described,     248  250,     ad> 
possessed  by  the  foreign  di 
248,  improvement  in  our  own  since 
the  Kurr-Benson  disclosures, 
duties  and  services  of  the  police- 
man, "  a  tribunal  of  the  first  in- 
stance," 411,  412:  a  police  court 
and    its   aspect.    412,    413;   typical 
cases.   412.   413,   procedure  in  a 
case  of  "theft  from  the  person," 
412,  413. 

Politics:  influence  of.  in  magisterial 
appointments.    .7;.    especially    in 
appointment    of  borough    in: 
trate,  and  evils  of  the  process,  71. 
72;  operation  of,  in  municipal  af- 

s,  72;  influence  of  mi  mix  i 
Parliament  in  local  bodies,  73,  74, 
their    policy    towards    industrial 
electors  denned,  74:  the  course  of. 
carefully  watch  d  by  m<  tenants, 
131);  political  bias  of  the  ortisa 
"a   big  England,   hut   primarily 
trade,"  169;  working  men  in  1 
;    menl    L70;  1  brown  open  to  the 
middle  •  '  by  the  Reform  i  I 

318;  influence  of  the  great  families 
in,  326  328;  efli  ling 

up  of  the  middle  cl 
ponderance  of  aristocratic  u 
ence  in  the  present  M  i 
329;  statesmanship  [uir<  d 

from  scholarship,   : 

in.  :;:;i);  political  element   in   I 
country  hoi  I  881  i  club  i  and 

their  influence,  881 ;   on' 
tions  of  political  ol 


616 


INDEX. 


servative  and  Liberal  clubs  con- 
trasted— the  Carlton,  the  Reform, 
333,  334;  treatment  of  rank  and 
file  by  Conservative  leaders,  334; 
by  Liberal  leaders,  334.  The  sa- 
lon: reasons  for  its  declining  in- 
fluence, 334,  335 ;  exceptional 
power  of  Lady  Palmerston,  335, 
336,  remarkable  instance  of  it — 
"the  expelled  minister,"  33G,  its 
present  scope,  337;  political  din- 
ners, 338;  process  of  parliament- 
ary reform,  342;  the  Caucus — its 
aim,  uses,  and  evils,  343-347,  su- 
premacy of  democratic  polity,  347 ; 
statesmanship  —  its  changed  na- 
ture, and  its  necessities,  349,  350; 
considered  as  a  profession,  the 
necessity  for  wealth,  570 ;  the 
value  of  an  unpaid  legislature,  570, 
571;  democracy  in  the  colonies 
and  at  home,  586. 

Polity  and  laws,  prevalent  ignorance 
of,  6,  7. 

Poor  Law,  The :  overseers  and  guard- 
ians, 56;  beneficial  action  of,  197, 
198;  necessity  of  it,  205;  ili  result 
of  the  Scotch  Poor  Law,  212,  213; 
evil  tendencies  of  its  operations, 
213;  its  defenders — the  Spectator, 
213;  its  counterpart  in  continent- 
al countries,  215. 

Poor  rates,  their  incidence  on  wages 
and  on  land,  209-211;  ill  effect  of 
reliance  on  "the  rates,"  210. 

Positivism :  its  effects  and  doctrine, 
481,  482;  Miss  Martineau  upon  it, 
481;  Mr.  John  Morley,  482;  diffi- 
culties not  met,  482;  influence  of 
the  doctrines  of  Comte,  485;  trib- 
ute to  Comte  from  G.  H.  Lewes, ' 
487;  its  attack  on  psychology,  486; 
its  system — "humanity,"  486;  its 
greatest  element — "evolution  of 
thought,"  486;  Positivism  of  M. 
Littre,  486;  religious  Positivists — 
Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  486. 

Post-office  Savings  Banks,  Deficien- 
cies of,  218. 

Posting,  as  it  is,  267. 

Pottery  trade,  The:  need  of  legisla- 
tion for,  150. 

Precedence  in  England,  314-316; 
l)od  on  precedence,  314;  rank  of 
great  officers  of  state,  hereditary 


and  otherwise,  315;  instances  of 
the  difficulties  of,  in  English  so- 
ciety, 316,  the  Duke  of  "Norfolk 
and  his  kinsfolk,  316. 

Prefect,  The,  and  fagging  at  public 
schools,  293,  294. 

Premier,  The:  the  Premier  and  the 
Sovereign,  363,  364;  his  duty  to 
his  colleagues,  363,  364;  Mr.  Glad- 
stone upon  his  duties,  363,  364; 
numerous  and  troublesome  appli- 
cations to,  369. 

Prerogatives  of  the  Queen,  their  vast 
extent,  352,  353;  and  limited  exer- 
cise, 353.  < 

Presbyterians,  The.     (See  Nokcon- 

FOBMTTY. ) 

Present  age,  The:  characteristics  of 
life  in  the  nineteenth  century,  1-3, 
4-6,  its  difficulties,  3-6,  issues 
presented  thereby,  2,  3;  is  essen- 
tially transitional,  6;  and  an  epoch 
of  organization  and  economy  of 
force,  6. 

Press,  The :  excellence  of,  in  provin- 
cial towns,  95;  the  rural  laborer 
and  his  newspaper,  182;  the  jour- 
nalist, his  occupation  and  income, 
574;  the  daily  press— its  influence, 
574,  575,  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison 
thereon,  575,  its  features,  575; 
comparison  of  the  French  and 
English  newspaper,  575;  economy 
and  staff  of  a  large  "daily,"  576; 
the  special  correspondent,  576;  the 
weekly  press,  577;  features  and 
prospects  of  modern  journalism, 
576,  577. 

Pretvman,  Mr.,  on  dispauperization, 
209-211. 

Primogeniture:  its  value,  312;  prob- 
able exclusive  and  disastrous  re- 
sult of  the  substitution  of  the 
French  law,  312. 

Prince  Consort,  The,  debt  of  art  to, 
508,  of  music,  518. 

Princes  of  crime,  similarity  of  ca- 
reer of,  246;  their  careers  traced, 
246,  247. 

Prisons  and  prisoners:  contraction 
of  Quarter  Sessions  power  through 
transfer  of,  55,  result  of  the  trans- 
fer not  decided,  65;  procedure  in 
prosecution  of  a  criminal,  251; 
beneficial  effect  of  the  Prison  Act 


INDEX. 


of  1877,  251,  252;  treatment  of  the 
prisoners — of  the  ordinary  prison- 
er, 252,  253,  of  the  convict,  penal 
servitude,  2.13,  254;  earnings  of 
prisoners.  254;  discharged  prison- 
ers, 254,  255.  beneficial  operations 
of  the  Prisoners'  Aid  Society, 
255. 

Privy  Council,  The:  its  office,  361, 
362;  its  duties,  362,  363;  a  com 
3(33;  the  Premier  and  the  Sover- 
eign, 363,  364;  its  aspect  and  con- 
stitution as  a  court  of  appeal. 
typical  cases  brought  before  it, 
428,  429. 

Professional  England:  status  of  (he 
»  professions,  actual  and  popular 
estimate,  320-325;  merchant  and 
stock-broker  compared,  320,  321; 
status  of  the  painter,  actor,  doc- 
tor, attorney,  322,  323,  of  the  au- 
thor, barrister,  322,  323,  excep- 
tional rank  of  soldier,  clergyman, 
author,  barrister,  322-324,  reason  ; 
thereof,  323,  324,  state  recognition 
of  these  pretensions,  324,  325, 
transitional  state  of  the  profes- 
sions and  effacemeut  of  old  lines 
of  demarkation,  562;  efficiency,  a 
•sent  essential,  562 ;  insufficiency 
of  openings  in,  564;  the  civil  en- 
gineer— attractions  of,  and  predi- 
lection for  the  career,  563;  the 
chemist,  563;  decreasing  attrac- 
tions of  commercial  life,  567;  the 
university  degree — advantages  of 
"honors,"  564,  its  value  at  the 
Bar,  564,  little  value  of  an  ordi- 
nary degree — the  graduate's  ca- 
reer as  a.  colonist,  as  a  schoolmas- 
ter, 566,  567;  the  profession  of 
teaching,  566;  the  medical  career 
— its  prospects,  income,  and  perils, 
567-569;  politics  as  a  profession, 
570;  diplomacy  as  a  profession. 
571,  the  army  as  a  profession,  572, 
573;  literature  as  a  profession — 
its  gains  and  prospects,  573,  574, 
journalism  and  its  duties,  574;  the 
professional  career  in  India,  578, 
579,  the  competition  Wallah,  578, 

-  579;  professional  incomes — the 
barrister,  565,  the  doctor,  568,  the 
soldier,  573,  poets  and  authors, 
573,  574,  the  journalist,  574. 


ecution  of  a  criminal,  pr  .-,  .i„r,. 
in.  -J.". i. 

Prospects    of    England 

691 

to  the  colonies  and  I 

691,  592. 
Prosperity,  Comma 

sential  of  national, 
Provinces  Che. 
Psycl 

l;  attacked  b ^  I 

■     nert     Si.. 

p     i  of  Psychology," 

alysis  of  the  ps 

its  invasion  of  literati] 

Public-house,  The:  its  rel 
depressed  trade,  128;  the 
the  village  beer-hi 

Public   Record   Office,    rec 
vices  to    literature   of    Pi 
Stubbs  in. 

Public  Schools,  The:   i 

the  Public   Scl  in- 

crease in  286;  progress  made  by, 
286:  neglect  of  par  n1 
ed  preference  of  play  t..  Btndy, 
292;  their  interior  economy, 
294;  the  prefect  and   \. 
294;  product  of  fchi 
294,  increase  I  ■nu- 

bility of  the  modern   Bchool 
294;  the  public  schools  in  Parlia- 
ment, 295;  nee  a   I 
of  social  iiiliin  nee  in. 

Public  Works  Loan  ( Jon 
The.  66. 

Puddler,  Independence  of  the, 

Pullman  car.  The,  •-!">'.». 

Pupil  teachers,  284  ;  a I  of 

ary  schools,  28 1 .  - 

Quaktek    Sessions,    Court    of 
also  Magh  51,  52;  a  a 

ing  described,  53,  6 '    '  I  ' 
duties,  53,  6 '.  55,    1 1  i.    U5;  im- 
portance Of  itS  Hie  in  times 

ie  by,  54;  decline  in  U 
en1  day.  54.  * 

One,-;,.  The.     (See  Thi  i 
■ 
419. 

R  \i;,\vavs:    general    exc  »11<  q< f 

their     nam 

third 


618 


INDEX. 


motion,"  256,  257;  railway  mile- 
age, 257;  signals — the  semaphore, 
night  signals,  257;  Mr.  Parsloe, 
"Onr  Railway  System,"  257,  258 
(footnote);  the  "block  system,"  its 
working  explained,  257,  258;  ex- 
penditure and  income,  258;  acci- 
dents, 258;  great  speed  attained, 
259;  Pullman  cars,  259;  eccentrici- 
ties of  progress  on  a  Highland 
railway,  260;  want  of  punctuality 
and  difficulties,  260;  state  control 
and  enactments,  260,  261;  the 
Railway  Commissioners  and  their 
functions,  261,  262;  inconven- 
iences of  independent  action, 
263;  advantages  of  State  con- 
trol, 263,  261- ;  unsatisfactory  sup- 
ply of  refreshments,  264;  rail- 
way communication  and  popu- 
lar amusements,  "the  excursion 
train,"  542-545. 

Railway  Commissioners,  The,  and 
their  functions,  261,  262. 

Rank,  Professional:  popular  and  act- 
ual estimate  of,  320,  321;  the  mer- 
chant and  stock-broker,  320,  321; 
the  painter,  actor,  doctor,  attor- 
ney, 321,  322;  the  author,  the  bar- 
rister, 321,  322;  exceptional  rank 
of  the  barrister,  soldier,  author 
and  clergyman,  and  reason  for  it, 
322-324,  state  recognition  of  these 
pretensions,  324,  325. 

Ratepayers,  their  privileges  in  rela- 
tion to  guardians,  44;  comparative 
impoteuce  of  the  London  rate- 
payer, 75. 

Read,  Mr.  C.  S.,  on  the  disestab- 
lishment of  the  parish  official,  43; 
on  agricultural  wages,  195. 

Reade,  Mr.  Charles,  as  a  novelist, 
533. 

Receiver  of  stolen  goods,  The,  242; 
his  comparative  immunity,  242, 
243. 

Recruiting,  its  procedure  and  safe- 
guards, 446,  447. 

Rector,  The:  his  position,  influence, 
and  multifarious  occupations,  9- 
15;  the  rectory,  10;  parochial  dif- 
ficulties, 11,  12;  his  relation  to  the 
Education  Office,  13;  the  benefit 
society,  14,  15;  his  importance  ad- 
mitted by  Dissenters,  15,  19,  their 


objections  to  him  and  the  system, 
19,  20;  the  absentee  rector.  16; 
the  learned  rector,  the  scholastic 
rector,  17,  18;  the  fervid  rector, 
18 ;  necessity  of  tolerance  and 
common  sense,  18;  example  of  its 
use,  24;  negligent  rectors,  19;  his 
responsibility  to  maintain  the  in- 
fluence of  the  clergy,  21;  his  rela- 
tion to  the  Board  of  Guardians, 
45;  the  title  "parson,"  462;  the 
rector  and  vicar  discriminated, 
462;  tithes  and  their  commuta- 
tion, 462;  perpetual  curates,  462; 
Queen  Anne's  bounty,  463. 

Rectory,  The:  its  aspect  described, 
10. 

Redesdale,  Earl  of:  his  unique  posi-« 
tion  in  the  House  of  Lords,  405. 

Redgrave,  Mr.,  on  the  results  of 
factory  legislation,  158-ltO. 

Reform:  the  process  of  parliament- 
ary reform,  342. 

Reform  Bill,  The:  its  effect  on  so- 
cial life,  first,  in  the  extinction  of 
the  claims  of  mere  men  of  fashion; 
secondly,  in  throwing  open  poli- 
tics; thirdly,  in  stimulating  the 
aristocracy,  317-319. 

Reform  Club,  The:  its  aspects,  334; 
unwise  political  action  of,  333. 

Reformatories,  Beneficial  results  of, 
240,  241. 

Registry  Office.  (See  The  Colontal 
Office.  ) 

Religion  (see  also  Church  of  En- 
gland, Nonconformity,  Church 
of  Rome,  and  The  Jews):  debt 
due  by  religion  to  Nonconformity, 
24;  influence  of,  on  magisterial 
appointments,  53;  secularism  ol 
the  London  artisan,  170;  secular 
and  religious  education,  277,  "the 
London  compromise,"  277;  the 
pending  question  of  secular  and 
religious  education,  297;  variety 
of  sects,  452;  general  characteris- 
tics, activity  and  toleration,  453; 
the  former  not  necessarily  devo- 
tion, 454;  Dr.  Ince  on  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  English  theology,  456; 
the  question  of  inspiration,  466; 
other  questions  of  the  day  and  is- 
sues involved,  466;  Positivism- 
effects  and  doctrines  of,  481,  482, 


INDEX. 


Miss  Martinenu  and  Mr.  Morlcy 
on,  481,  482;  difficulties  unmet, 
482;  Dean  Stanley  on  progri 
theology,  457,  on  religion  and 
science,  458;  theology  and  relig- 
ion, 458;  science  and  religion, 
458,  their  contact  not  necessarily 
opposition,  525-527;  organization 
and  tolerance,  what  do  they  por- 
tend '?  480;  philosophy  as  the  re- 
ligion of  the  future,  526,  527; 
Christianity  and  philosophy,  540. 

"Repairing  lease,  The:"  a  repre- 
sentative case  of  the  difficulties  of 
the  law,  416-423. 

Republic,  The:  Mr.  Chamberlain  on 
the  perfection  of  the  polity  of  the 
United  States,  343,  344;  tempo- 
rary despotism  of  the  presidential 
system,  351;  contrasted  with  mon- 
archy, 354. 

Reserves,  The,  450. 

Responsibility  of  the  Government, 
increased  in  present  age,  4. 

Revaluation  of  farms  on  the  Devon- 
shire estate,  38. 

Review,  The,  has  become  the  polit- 
ical platform  of  the  individual, 
373. 

Ritualism  and  the  ritualist.  (See 
The  Chtjech  of  England.) 

Rochdale  Pioneers,  The,  222;  their 
operations  described,  224;  con- 
trasted with  a  London  store,  225, 
226;  advantages  offered  to  the 
working  classes,  225,  226. 

Rome.     (See  The  Chukch  of  Rome.  ) 

Rotation  of  crops,  effects  oi  the  cus- 
tom, 191. 

E oya  1  ty  and  the  Royal  Family.  (See 
The  Ceown.) 

Rural  administration :  the  small 
squire  dying  out,  43;  disestablish- 
ment of  parish  officials,  43;  Mr. 
C.  S.  Read  thereon,  43:  election 
to  the  Board  of  Guardians,  44. 
claims  of  candidates,  44,  45,  priv- 
ileges of  ratepayers,  44;  power  of 
the  individual  parish  declining, 
45;  duties  of  the  board,  45;  influ- 
ence of  the  rector,  45,  of  the  farm- 
er, 45,  46,  of  the  lord  lieutenant, 
46,  evils  of  absenteeism,  47;  de- 
sirable reforms,  47;  a  scene  in  a 
board-room,   48,   49,   composition 


of  the  board,   18, 

Bcribed,  L9  61;  the  Co 

ter  Sea  ions,   51,   52,   .-. 

described, 

portanceof  its  mem 

od  of  appointmi 

53;  objections  to  the  uu 

magis  racy,    57,    5* 

reeve  and   porl    i 

of  divided  aul 

ministration,    and 

.  Hnn  ;i,  raj  ton,    56 

Wright    there  >n, 

guardians,  high 

boards,  ma  i;  the  I. 

Board,  a  connecting  link,  59. 
Rural  dean,  The,  and  his  oi 
Rural  districts  (see  al  Vil- 

lage): Church  of 

eiablc  in,  21;  influenci        1 1 

in  villages  ;;ii(!  towns,  2H   24 
Rural  laborer,  rhe.     (i 

txjral  Laborer. 

in,  Mr.,  debt   of  arl    to, 

510;  "Modern    ; 

an  art  critic.  516. 

Salon,  The:  reasons  for  its  declin- 
ing power.  335;  exceptional  influ- 
ence  of  Lady   1': 

336;   remarkable   instant 

'•  the  expelled  mil 
present  scope, 

Sanitation:    an    important    duty   of 
guardians,    49-51;    overcrowd 
in  rural  c 
ference  of  the  woi 
lNi:  .:.:'■. 
184;  Dr.  Fraser  th 

Scarborough,  !' 

School  Board,  The:  relation  to  i 
nicipal  govern: 
members.  62;  the  I    ; 
its  results,  d 
153-155,  operation  of,  2 
influence  on  t  lition  oi 

rural  laboi 

274;  operation  of  the  by-laws,  ~~l: 
SyBj  og  compul 

attendanci 
to,  275,  its  in 
men,  practical  b(    <  flcial  ■■ 
275;    the   attendance   commi 
27."):  State  and  voluntary  i 
der  the  old  system,  275,  27!  .  I 


620 


INDEX. 


Brougham's  advocacy  of  national 
education,  276;  progress  of  State 
aid  and  control,  276,  277;  opera- 
tions of  the  School  Boards,  277; 
secular  and  religious  teach  iug,  the 
"London  compromise,"  277;  aim 
of  the  Education  Department,  277, 
278;  conditions  of  State  grants, 
278;  remuneration  of  schoolmas- 
ters, 278;  a  visit  to  a  Board  School, 

278,  279,   the  official   inspection, 

279,  generally  unsatisfactory  re- 
sult of  the  teaching — learning  by 
rote,  279,  280,  anxiety  to  secure 
parliamentary  grants,  281;  statis- 
tics to  show  decrease  of  crime, 
281,  282;  figures  showing  attend- 
ance, 283;  vast  expenditure  and 
its  rapid  increase,  283,  284;  pupil 
teachers,  necessity  for  secondary 
schools,  284. 

Schoolmasters:  the  pay  of  School 
Board  officials,  278;  conferences 
of  head  masters,  289;  the  College 
of  Preceptors,  289;  types  of  inef- 
ficient masters,  290,  291;  the  ref- 
uge of  the  ordinary  graduate,  566; 
teaching  as  a  profession,  566. 

Schools  (see  also  The  School  Board 
and  Public  Schools):  the  village 
school  and  its  advantages,  173; 
necessity  for  secondary  schools, 
2S4,  289;  grammar  schools,  284, 
advantages  offered  by  them  in 
certain  towns,  284;  the  Endowed 
Schools  Act,  285;  schools  of  de- 
sign, 517;  attitude  of  the  univer- 
sities, 288;  direct  and  indirect  in- 
spection, efficiency  of  the  latter, 
291. 

Science:  science  and  religion,  458, 
their  contact  not  necessarily  oppo- 
sition, 525-527;  Huxley's  method 
and  services,  519-522,  on  the  "pro- 
toplasm," 521;  services  and  pro- 
cedure of  Professor  Tyndall,  521, 
522;  recent  and  growing  influence 
of  Mr.  Lister  on  physiology,  522; 
results  of  the  Challenger  Expedi- 
tion, 523;  Mr.  St.  George  Mivart's 
opposition  to  Huxley  and  Tyndall, 
524;  invasion  of  science  into  lit- 
erature, instanced  in  George  Eli- 
ot's works,  524,  525. 

Scope  of  this  work,  6,  7. 


Seaside  resorts.  106;  attractions  nec- 
essary, 106,  107;  the  seaside  build- 
er, 107;  patronized  by  the  middle 
classes,  108;  aspects  common  to 
all  of  them,  10S;  Scarborough,  108. 

Secondary  schools,  The  need  of 
more,  284,  289. 

Secretaries  of  State.  (See  Official 
England.  ) 

Sects:  the  great  variety  of  religious 
sects,  452,  453. 

Secularism:  of  the  London  artisan, 
170;  secular  education,  277,  the 
London  compromise,  277 ;  the 
pending  question  of  secular  and 
religious  education,  297. 

Services,  The.  (See  The  Ar:,iy  and 
The  Navy.) 

Shairp,  Professor,  as  a  critic,  529. 

Sheffield.     (See  Yorkshire.) 

Shops,  Legislative  interference  in, 
153;  the  Saturday  half-holiday, 
153;  difficulties  of,  and  need  of 
discretion,  153. 

Short  service  in  the  army,  its  intro- 
duction and  deficiencies,  444.  445. 

Signals  on  railways,  use  of  sema- 
phores and  night  signals,  257. 

Smith,  Mr.  George,  on  reforms  in 
brick-yards,  152. 

Social  life  (see  also  Society)  :  loss  of 
insularity  of  English  character, 
298,  the  effects  of  travel,  298,  of 
intercourse  with  France,  299;  the 
imprint  of  French  habits,  299, 
living  in  "  flats  "  at  Victoria  Street, 
kc,  its  advantages,  299,  300,  ex- 
treme adoption  of  French  habits, 
301,  effects  of,  on  the  stage,  301, 
on  marriage  and  the  relations  of 
the  sexes,  302,  305-307;  decline 
of  patriotic  enthusiasm,  302 ; 
"change,"  the  habit  of  the  aris- 
tocracy, 302,  303;  the  squire  of 
the  old  school  and  of  the  new, 
their  homes  and  life,  303-305;  the 
modern  country  house,  305;  the 
season  in  London,  304;  effects  on 
domesticity,  fashionable  parents 
and  their  children,  305,  306;  ef- 
fects on  feminine  independence, 
307;  the  daily  life  of  the  modern 
young  Lidy  described,  307-309, 
effects  of  this  novel  liberty  and 
possible  ultimate  beneficial  result, 


INDEX. 


309;  society  in  a  country  house, 

its  constituents,  330,  331 ;  dis- 
appearance of  "the  wit,"  331; 
club  life,  331-333;  social  life  in 
the  colonies,  589;  colonial  respecl 
for  the  law,  589;  supremacy  of 
physical  power  in  the  colonics, 
5S9. 
Society  (see  also  Social  Life):  its 
elements,  aristocratic,  plutocrat Lo, 
democratic,  310;  gradual  identifi- 
cation of  the  aristocratic  and  plu- 
tocratic elements,  310,  311,  the 
merchant  prince  of  to-day  and  yes- 
terday, 311;  the  aristocracy  and 
commerce,  311  ;  primogeniture, 
its  value,  and  probable  disastrous 
results  of  substitution  of  French 
law,  312 ;  English  nobility  not 
"noblesse,"  312;  meeting  of  di- 
verse ranks  in  society,  313,  314, 
reserve  arising  therefrom,  313,  314; 
Ijrecedence,  314,  316;  social  ad- 
vantages possessed  by  commoners, 
317,  exceptional  positions  achieved 
by  some,  317;  effect  of  the  Reform 
Bill  (1)  in  extinction  of  claims  of 
pure  men  of  fashion,  (2)  in  throw- 
ing open  politics,  (3)  in  vitalizing 
the  aristocracy,  317,  318;  "action  " 
a  necessity  to  distinction,  319: 
earnestness  of  an  Englishman's 
pursuits,  319;  excellence  a  neces- 
sity  of   success    throughout   life, 

320,  Professional  rank:  the  act- 
ual and  popular  estimate  of  it, 
320-325,  the  merchant  and  stock- 
broker compared,  320,  321,  of  the 
artist,  and  reasons,  322,  of  the 
actor,    painter,    doctor,    attorney, 

321,  322,  of  the  author,  barrister, 

322,  reasons  for  exceptional  posi- 
tion of  the  author,  barrister,  sol- 
dier, or  clergyman,  322-324,  State 
recognition  of  these  pretensions, 
324,  325;  its  influence  in  politics, 
329;  a  seat  in  Parliament  does  not 
confer  absolute  social  rank,  374; 
titles  to  social  consideration  in 
the  colonies,  589. 

Sovereign,  The.     (See  The  Crown.) 
Speaker,  The:  his  duties  and  priv- 
ileges,   388-392;   the   Speaker   of 
the  House  of  Lords,  401. 
Special  correspondent,  The,  576. 


Spenoer,    Herb  rl  : 
!'■"-   L97,   extfi  me  imp 
493;  extraordh 

jeei.   I. 

493;  hi     theory  ..i 

••  Firs!   Prinoip 

ory  of   ••  tii,.    i 

"Principles  ol 

his  analysis  of  th< 

496. 
Squatter,  The  Till    ■  .  179. 
Squire,  The:  his  position  and  ■  •■ 

pation,  :» ;  absenteeism,   In  ; 

small  squire  dying  oat.  !:;.  192 

squire   of    tl Id   school 

the  new  contrasted,  tin  ir  bo 

and  life,  303  '• 
Stage,  The:  excellence  of,  in  provin- 
cial  towns,    '.I.");    effeel 

course  with  the  French,  901; social 

statiis  of  liie  actor  inl- 

and   its    support*  :    .     "old"    ami 

'•  new."  550,  551;  do   i  no 

moral  instruction,  551;  inflm 

of  tiie  Fr<  Qch  -  b 

the  music-hall,  552;  public  den 

for  realism  and  d 

straint  in   its  low 

554:  the  "  <  ,;   «  \ 

554;  French  i. 

to  o  •.  and  r 

the  Lord  Chainb<  rlaini 

of  Plays,   his   fun 

fense  of  hi  rich 

plays  in  London,  560;   u 

bility  of  a  Shake  pearian 

560. 

The:  fch<      I  ! 

new,   265  267  :  amateur  c 

267;  "White  B 
Stanley,   Dean:  on  I 

th<  157;  on 

ligion,  458;  his  th 

in,L 
Stansfeld,   Mr.,  on  o 

214. 
State.  The    -  : 

i 
ponsibil 

imperial  and   L< 

'  ..tion  to  frii 

217,  218;  its  relation  I 
i,  261;  advi 

trol  of  rail 


G22 


INDEX. 


tion  to  education — limited  aid  and 
interference  under  the  old  system. 
275,  progress  of  its  aid  and  con- 
trol, 276,  277,  conditions  of  State 
grants,  278,  how  educational  grants 
may  become  denominational  en- 
dowments, 297;  S  sognition 
of  exceptional  social  rank  in  cer- 
tain pn  54, 325;  probable 
.1-  of  county  suffrage,  408,  409, 
j  >•  tssible  strife  between  classes,  409; 
secure  tenure  of  tlie  constitution, 
409;  possible  national  calamities, 
409,  410;  the  State  and  art,  517; 
financial  relations  with  the  colo- 
nies, 582.  its  relation  to  the  col- 
onies, 583,  5S4,  Burke  upon  this 
relationship,  590. 

State  emoluments,  The  artisan's  view 
of,  144,  145. 

Statesmanship:  how  acquired,  329; 
not  through  scholarship,  329;  its 
changed  nature  in  modern  times, 
and  necessities,  349;  candor  indis- 
pensable, 350. 

Statute  fair,  The:  its  evils;  189,  190; 
happily  dying  out,  1S9. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  and  the  Scotch 
philosophy  of  common  sense,  484. 

Stock-broker,  The,  social  status  of, 
320,  321;  contrasted  with  that  of 
the  merchant,  320,  321. 

Stock  Exchange,  The:  its  operations, 
115:  i  ,:  pect  described.  116;  in- 
vestment business,  116,  117;  gam- 
bling or  speculative  business,  116, 
117;  issue  of  a  foreign  loan,  117- 
119,  deception  practiced  on  the 
public,  118,  119. 

Structure  of  English  society,  The, 
310. 

Stubbs,  Professor,  at  the  Becord  Of- 
fice, his  services  to  literature,  533. 

Surgeon,  The.  (See  The  Medical 
Profession.) 

Swinburne,  Mr.,  as  a  poet,  530. 

Symonds,  Mr.  J.  A.,  as  a  critic,  529. 

Table  d'hote,  The,  269-271:  unsuit- 
ability  to  the  ordinary  English- 
man, 269-271. 

Temperate  regions  of  the  earth,  their 
extent  and  occupation  by  England, 
581. 

Tennyson  as  a  poet,  530. 


Textile  trade,  The,  121. 

Thames  Embankments,  The,  77. 

Theaters.     (See  The  Stage.) 

Theft,  Legal  procedure  in  a  case  of, 
illustrated,  412,  413. 

Theological  literature :  writings  of 
John  Henry  Newman,  537 ;  of 
Dean  Stanley,  537. 

Theology.     (See  Beligion.) 

Thrift:  regularity  of  wages  in  Lan- 
cashire contributory  to;  excess  in 
mining  districts  accounts  for  ab- 
sence of,  83,  84;  friendly  societies, 
215,  neeessitv  of  co-operation  of 
employers,  instances  and  difficul- 
ties, 218;  benefits  accruing  to  mem- 
bers of  friendly  societies,  218,  sug- 
gestions for  State  control,  218 ; 
Post-office  Savings  Banks,  218, 
their  deficiencies,  218 ;  Manches- 
ter Unity  of  Odd  FeUows,  219; 
penny  banks — their  operations  and 
popularity,  219;  the  real  incite- 
ments to  thrift,  219;  advantages 
of  co-operation,  220;  Mr.  George 
Howell  on  earnings  of  the  work- 
ing man,  220  (footnote);  statistics 
of  friendly  societies,  221  [footnote). 

Tiaies  and  then-  commutation,  462. 

Toleration:  a  necessity  in  religious 
teaching,  18;  a  feature  of  the  re- 
ligion of  the  day,  453 ;  in  this 
respect,  what  does  it  portend  ? 
480. 

Town,  The:  Dissent  in  towns  and 
in  rural  districts,  23,  24;  imper- 
ceptible growth  of  the  village  into 
town,  59;  country  town  and  vil- 
lage compared,  60;  characteristics 
of  the  former,  60,  61;  provincial 
and  London  artisan  contrasted, 
170-172.  (See  Towns  of  Busi- 
ness and  Towns  of  Pleasure.) 

Town  Council,  The:  constitution  and 
duties  of,  63,  64;  the  municipal 
offices,  63,  64 ;  the  committees, 
64;  the  aldermen,  64;  a  meeting 
described,  66,  67,  its  procedure, 
67,  its  oratory,  67,  68;  its  train- 
ing, good  and  bad,  68,  69;  func- 
tions, position,  and  unceasing  du- 
ties of  the  Mayor,  69.  70;  idem  of 
the  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  69, 
70;  provincial  aldermen  not  mag- 
istrates, 70. 


INDEX. 


Town  lab(  rer,  Tlie.  (See  The  AR- 
TISAN. ) 

Towns  of  business:  the  indue 
town  embodies  science  ami  indus- 
try, 79,  cheerless  aspect  of,  79, 
sudden  change  from  rural  to  in- 
dustrial districts,  7!»:  fusion  of  the 
elements  of  life,  a  source  of  na- 
tional power,  80;  mqney-gettihg 
not  the  sole  impulse,  80,  other 
beneficial  aims,  80 ;  Lancashire 
sixty  yours  since,  and  to-day, 
81;  Manchester  and  Liverpool, 
o  ipitals  of  commerce,  yet  cen 
of  culture,  81;  cultivation  of  the 
fine  arts,  81 ;  the  plutocrat  not 
the  reigning  type,  81;  the  York- 
shire manufacturer's  household. 
82 ;  tendency  towards  increased 
luxury,  Bradford  and  Sheffield 
houses,  83;  love  of  sport  in  York- 
shire, 83;  pay  of  the  Lancashire 
factory  hand  and  Yorkshire  miner 
— regularity  of  the  one,  excess  and 
consequent  absence  of  thrift  with 
the  other,  84;  the  toiling  popula- 
tion, hardly  visible  in  London, 
predominant  in  Leeds  and  Man- 
chester, 81,  85 ;  Liverpool  and 
Manchester  contrasted,  85-87,  92- 
94;  smaller  manufacturing  towns 
and  villages,  87;  Liverpool,  its 
population  and  society,  89-93. 

Towns  of  Pleasure:  aspect  of  a  ca- 
thedral city,  99;  changed  Oxford, 
100,  effect  of  railway  communi- 
cation, 100,  married  fellows,  100; 
the  cathedral  close,  its  denizens, 
its   social   life,    "Mrs.    Proudie," 

100,  101;   Bristol,   101;  Durham, 
101;    Exeter   and   its   attractions, 

101,  102;  Canterbury,  102;  York, 
102;  Cheltenham,  102,  103;  Leam- 
ington, 102,  103 ;  Bath  and  its 
beauty,  103;  Clifton,  103,  101:  ne- 
cessities of  prosperity — medical  re- 
pute, a  school  or  college,  churches, 
103,  101;  jealousies  of  inhabit) 
101;  recreations — croquet,  lawn 
tennis,  105,  increased  intercourse 
of  the  young  through  these  pas- 
times, 105,  sea-side  resorts,  10G, 
features  common  to  all,  108,  at- 
tractions essential,  107,  the  sea- 
side builder,  10G,  107,  essentially 


patronized  by  the  inid.ll.> 
.    Scarborough,    U 
^  and   ils  Bpeci 
Trade.  Coma  iM, 

and  I'i\  ' 

Trades  i 

on  them  of  the  d 

liament,    H;  th     ■ 

T  th  tir  i.   I 

baneful,    166    Li 

1  i  ral  on,    167   L69;    ti 

strike  of  L877,   L68;  obj<  i 

foi 
Tramp,  Audaci 

211. 
Transition:   t 

transition, 

Of   the   lav.  130,    Of   the    prO- 

sions,  562. 
Transportation,  Evils  of  the 

of,  240. 
Travel  and  biography,  5 
Traveling:  eh  sapness  of,  in  pi- 
days,   256;   gen<  i a'   excellem  i 
railway  ma. 
ing  third-clas  ."  2 
in  motion."'  -J.")?:  the  raih 
tern,  257  265;  una'    peedi 

.    260;    Pullman    Ci  ':     a 

Highland    railway,    2i 
refreshments,   2i'>!.   i" 
v>  hides,    265;    thi 
old  and  new.  265,   26 
tear    coach,     267,     "  th       v.\ 
Ho;  ,"  267;  p 

is,  200;  the   I  ad- 

van  268;  the  modern  1. 

268  271  :    Ur-   table   J 
271;  efl  >i  travel 

cial  lit  ;   influei 

ways  on  popular  amus  u>. 
5 1  i. 

•airy,    '!"  positio 

numerous    troublesome    applica- 
tions i  i:"»- 
Lor  of  th< 

Tin: 

POM  C( 

Trees  in  London:  ne*  d  oJ 

tioM.     7~. 

Trollope,  Mr.  Anth 

,  532,  533. 
Truck  system,    ' 

. 


ti24 


INDEX. 


Tyndall,  Professor,  his  procedure 
in  science,  522;  his  services,  522; 
opDOsition  of  Mr.  St.  George 
Mivart,  523,  524 

Tynemouth,  Excavations  at,  31;  the 
Duke  of  Northumberland's  prop- 
erties at,  31,  the  ducal  interests 
represented  on  the  commission, 
31. 

Under-Secretaries  of  State.  (See 
Official  England.) 

Unions.  (See  Agricultural  Un- 
ions, Trades  Unions.  ) 

Unitarians.     (See  Nonconfobmety.) 

United  States,  The:  the  artisan  in 
his  relation  to  the  State  contrasted 
with  the  English,  115,  116;  Mr. 
Chamberlain  on  the  perfection  of 
her  polity,  314;  the  Caucus  in, 
343. 

Unity  of  Odd  Fellows,  The  Man- 
chester, 219. 

Universities,  The: inducements  held 
out  to  graduates  by  the  State, 
286,  287;  liberal  policy  of— middle- 
class  examinations,  287,  288,  un- 
attached students,  288,  new  pro- 
fessorial chairs,  288;  their  relation 
to  schools,  288;  the  university  de- 
gree— professional  value  of  "hon- 
ors," 564,  its  effect  at  the  Bar, 
564,  the  ordinary  graduate's  ca- 
reer, 566,  small  value  of  his  de- 
gree, 566;  his  prospects  in  the 
colonies,  566,  as  a  schoolmaster, 
566. 

Utilitarianism,  and  its  application, 
489-491. 

Vehicles,  London,  265. 

Vestries,  The  London,  75;  their 
operations  described,  76. 

Vicar,  The.     (See  The  Rector,) 

Village,  Tiie:  a  microcosm,  8,  9; 
position  of  the  squire,  9;  position 
and  duties  of  the  rector,  9-15;  in- 
fluence of  the  Church  of  England, 
9,  23,  24;  absenteeism,  9;  an  ideal 
village,  9,  10;  the  rectory  10;  pa- 
rochial difficulties,  11,  12;  sus- 
picious nature  of  the  peasant,  13, 
14;  the  benefit  society,  14,  15; 
agricultural  unions:  objections  to 
the  system,  20;  different  types  of 


farmers,  21,  22,  a  modern  farm- 
er's family,  22;  Dissent  in  rural 
districts,  23,  24;  imperceptible 
growth  into  a  town,  59;  a  country 
village  and  country  town  con- 
brasted,  60;  modern  improved  as- 
pect of,  173;  advantages  offered 
by  the  village  school,  173,  174; 
the  modern  cottage,  171;  the  co- 
operative store,  181;  sanitary  de- 
fects of,  184,  the  close  and  open 
village,  185  [footnote). 
Violence,  Crimes  of,  245, 
Voluntary  aid  to  education,  276. 
Volunteers,  The:  their  origin,  449; 
zeal,  449;  and  importance,  450. 

Wages:  agricultural  wages.  194-196; 
Mr.  Little  thereon,  195;  Mr.  C. 
S.  Read,  195;  special  instance  of 
wages  paid  on  one  day  through- 
out England,  196;  cheapness  of 
necessaries,  196;  Mr.  G.  Howell 
on  wages  and  expenses,  220  {foot- 
note). 

Wallah,  The  competition,  578,  579. 

Walpole,  Mr.  Spencer,  as  an  his- 
torian. 538. 

War  Offico  and  Secretary  for  War. 
(See  The  Army.) 

Watering-places.  (See  Sea-side 
Eesorts.  ) 

Wesley ans,  The  (or  Methodists). 
(See  Nonconformity.) 

Westminster  authorities,  The,  75. 

Westminster,  Duke  of,  organization 
of  his  estates  at  Eaton  Hall,  29, 
30;  security  of  tenure  of  employ- 
ment upon  them,  30. 

Whip,  The  parliamentary,  and  his 
functions,  381,  385. 

Whistler,  Mr.,  as  an  artist,  514. 

Whife-lcad  works,  Need  of  legisla- 
tion for,  156,  157; 

Wohurn  Abbey,  Feudal  customs  at, 
29. 

Women:  State  protection  of,  146; 
as  field  laborers,  190,  191,  Dr. 
Fraser's  objections  to  190;  satis- 
factory employment  of,  in  North- 
umberland, 190,  191; higher  teach- 
ing of  girls,  295,  296,  its  doubtful 
result,  296,  independence  result- 
ing from  changed  social  life,  307, 
present  effect  of  it  and  possible 


INDEX. 


beneficial    result,    309;    life   of   a 
modern  young  lady  described 
Rotten  Row,  five  o'clook  tea,  307 

309;  influence  in  politics.  330  335; 
Leticism  in  dress  and  recrea- 
tions,   510,    511;    lady    novelists, 
534,  535. 

Workhouse,  The:  its  appearance  and 
inmates,  201;  out-door  relief  and 
iial  wards,  201;  scrutiny  of  ap- 
plicants, 202;  one  treatment  for 
all,  202;  children  born  in  "the 
house,"  202.  (See  Out-door  Re- 
lief. ) 

Working  classes,  The  (see  also  The 
Artisan,  The  Agricultural  La- 
borer, The  Factory  Operative, 
and  The  Mining  Population)  : 
enormous  power  of,  111;  diversity 
of,  a  guarantee  of  order,  142;  bene- 
fits of  free  discussion,  142;  ad- 
vanced propaganda — the  Eleusis 
Club,  112;  State  protection  of 
women  and  children,  140;  ex: 
ive  legislation  a  blunder.  147; 
course  and  effects  of  legislation 
up  to  this  point,  147-153,  reforms 
not  fully  realized,  150,  reforms 
yet  necessary,  152,  153,  155-157; 
abuses  extant  in  the  Black  Coun- 
try, 159,  160;  employer  and  em- 
ployed, moderation  of  the  latter, 
164,  instance,  the  cotton  famine, 
11)4.  contrast  with  past  times,  the 
Nottingham  frame-breakers,  165, 
rare  instances  of  violence  in  this 
e,  166;  trades  unions,  166-169, 
their  influence  not  baneful,  166, 


167,  ben<  fi<  i  ' 
tion,   L67,    I    - 

I;  worku 
169,  L70;  the  1  rondon  uud  i  i 
oial    artisan   co 
overcrowding,  and 
sanitation,    18 
1  [owell  cm  \. 
ing,    i2-2ii 

accruing  to   them   bom   the 
operative  moi  em< 
ignorance  of  the  economy  "i  life, 
5581  :     their    ai  in    the 

northern    com  in 

London — the  music-hall,  the  mu- 
seum, the  tree  library,  ■  ••■ 
the  working-man's  olnb, 
stitution.  aims,  .   and  p 

peote,  547  I 
Wright,   M  r.   R,  s. ,  on  the  i 
t  rat  ion  of  rural  administration, 

9,   Mr.  Edmind,  as  a  novelist, 
533. 

Yeoman,  Disappearance  of  the,  192. 

fork,  The  city  of,  102. 

Yorkshire:   frugality  of  Ebrk- 

shire  manufacture 
lence  of  his  household,  SJ:  tend- 
ency to  luxury  in  tow        Bhei 
Bradford,  83;  lor  Bhin 
the  horse— the  St  I 
in  Sheffield,  83,  evil 
84;  the  mining  p  p  :,..-    m  a  fine 

race.  ,v  !. 

their  earnings  and  coum  qu< 

■ 
Leeds,  97. 


THE    END. 


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